Hello Andrea; I'll throw another log on the fire. The invasive Argentine Ant, Linepithema humile, is probably a useful example. Outside its native range, the species has multiqueen nests which accept workers or queens into the nest even if they were not born in that nest...a "supercolony". In Southern California such supercolonies are enormous and contain billions of workers.. Only a few of them exist in the state. At the boundaries between neighboring supercolonies workers are non-tolerant and fighting occurs. I imagine that the unit of selection here is not individual queens but rather the supercolony. That sounds like group selection to me. Best regards, Jim Des Lauriers

It depends on your philosophy, whether you accept Darwinism, creation or design, or even adaptation.

Mr. Pegman; Selection of any kind might lead to what is called an adaptation - that is, in hindsight, we can see that some phenotype is under positive selection and the reproductive status of the population improves. That's all.

Creation and design have no place whatsoever is any scientific discussion. The propositions are either untestable or have been disproven so many times that is tiresome to dwell on them. Best regards, Jim Des Lauriers

Dear James, thank you for your prompt example. I fully agree with you,

in this case the supercolony seems to be the true unit of selection ,or possibly

might be the merger of colonies that in the past represented smaller units.

I wonder if in this context, when the unit of selection is represented by a true group

(sensu Mayr: “... owing to the interaction of the composing individuals or owing to

a division of labor and other social actions, the fitness of the group

is higher or lower than the arithmetic mean of the fitness values

of the composing individuals, then the group as a whole can serve

as an object of selection”) we can still regard it as “Darwinian selection”.

I think we can; the theoretical framework stays the same but is applied to a different “object”, moreover, Darwin explored this in a discussion on human groups (as reported by Mayr).

Andrea; Would it matter if the multiple queens were sisters? There are many permutations among polygynous ants of relatedness of the queens. Some begin a nest with some number of sisters and as the colony matures the queens are killed by other queens or workers until only one is left. Hmmm. The phenomenon is delightfully complex. Cheers, Jim Des Lauriers

Group selection is of course Darwinian in nature. Jim Des Lauriers has given a good example. Selection no doubt operates effective at individual level (even say gene level), but it works only when it influences the group, i.e. species as a whole. A supermassive individual does not exemplify or characterises a species.

Darwin himself explicitly considered group as a unit of selection, writing (in The Descent of Man, p 166): There can be no doubt that a tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to give aid to each other and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection. At all times throughout the world tribes have supplanted other tribes; and as morality is one element in their success, the standard of morality and the number of well-endowed men will thus everywhere tend to rise and increase.

James: If queens are related (i.e. sisters) kin selection is probably working or has worked in the past. However, some point out that kin- and group-selection have the same mathematical formulation, and one can be derived from the other.

Dear Kholhring, thank you for your thought. I agree with you in considering “group selection as Darwinian in nature”, and I am glad to hear that. My doubts originated while reading books (e.g. J. Alcock ) that regarded group selection as non-Darwinian or even opposite to natural selection. In principle it may be correct, but I think this might led to confusion or misinterpretation among the students, I see as a more profitable approach to explore group selection as special case of natural selection

I recommend the interesting discussion of group selection in:

Wilson, D.S. 2012. Richard Dawkins, Edward O. Wilson, and the consensus of the many. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sloan-wilson/richard-dawkins-erward-o-_b_1588510.html

The taboo on group selection and mention of Wynne-Edwards is covered in an odd paper I published last year that you may find fun to read:

Google: Flux Deevey,s Hare and Haruspex revisited

Dear John, thank you for sharing your research. I found it very interesting, I enjoyed reading what actually happened during your study. Few days ago, a friend confided me his idea of how a scientific paper should be written: “it should report all events and thoughts that concurred to shape your idea, does not matter if it sounds strange or does not accord to a previous well defined hypothesis. After all, this is what really happen”. I think you profitably did this job. Moreover, the hypothesis you proposed on domestication, as possible factor affecting uncontrolled population growth is intriguing.