Unformatted text preview: unrealistic, but affecting only the numerical details and not the logic of the argument) If there is not enough food or some other limiting resource to successfully raise all 3 offspring, then natural selection will not favor the higher (mutant) reproductive rate; but if 3 offspring can be successfully raised, and this mutant prolific strategy is heritable (think of some behaviorally stereotyped organism like an insect, not humans!), then it will begin to increase in the population Similarly, the prolific strategy can spread by gene flow from adjacent populations Even though in long run the prolific strategy may doom the population to overexploit its resource base and crash, it is still favored by individual-level selection; and this will overwhelm group-level selection in all but exceptional circumstances (involving frequent group extinction, extremely low rates of gene flow between groups, etc.)...
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- Fall '10
- MonicaOyola
- Biology, Anthropology, Population Ecology, Evolution, Reproduction
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