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Trait Heritability in Major Transitions

View ORCID ProfileMatthew D. Herron, William C. Ratcliff
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/041830
Matthew D. Herron
1Division of Biological Sciences, University of Montana. Missoula, MT 59812.
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William C. Ratcliff
2School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology. Atlanta, GA 30332.
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Abstract

A crucial component of major transitions theory is that after the transition, adaptation occurs primarily at the level of the new, higher-level unit. For collective-level adaptations to occur, though, collective-level traits must be heritable. Since collective-level traits are functions of lower-level traits, collective-level heritability is related to particle-level heritability. However, the nature of this relationship has rarely been explored in the context of major transitions. We examine relationships between particle-level heritability and collective-level heritability for several functions that express collective-level traits in terms of particle-level traits. When this relationship is linear, the heritability of a collective-level trait is never less than that of the corresponding particle-level trait and is higher under most conditions. For more complicated functions, collective-level heritability is higher under most conditions, but can be lower when the function relating particle to cell-level traits is sensitive to small fluctuations in the state of the particles within the collective. Rather than being an impediment to major transitions, we show that collective-level heritability superior to that of the lower-level units can often arise ‘for free’, simply as a byproduct of collective formation.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
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Posted February 29, 2016.
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Trait Heritability in Major Transitions
Matthew D. Herron, William C. Ratcliff
bioRxiv 041830; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/041830
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Trait Heritability in Major Transitions
Matthew D. Herron, William C. Ratcliff
bioRxiv 041830; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/041830

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