What do altruism and kin selection have to do with natural selection?
Check these sites.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection
http://www.seop.leeds.ac.uk/entries/altruism-biological/
Altruism and kin selection are concepts that are closely related to the process of natural selection. Let's break down both of these terms and see how they fit into evolutionary theory.
First, let's talk about natural selection. Natural selection is a fundamental mechanism of evolution proposed by Charles Darwin. It refers to the process by which genetic traits that enhance an organism's survival and reproductive success are more likely to be passed on to future generations. Individuals with advantageous traits have a better chance of surviving and producing offspring, thereby increasing the frequency of those traits in the population over time.
Now, let's move on to altruism. Altruism refers to behavior where an individual helps another at some cost to itself. In the context of natural selection, altruism seems counterintuitive because it involves sacrificing an individual's own fitness for the benefit of others. This raises the question of how such altruistic behavior could evolve, given that natural selection favors traits that increase an individual's own fitness.
This is where kin selection comes into play. Kin selection is a specific form of natural selection that operates when an individual's actions benefit their close relatives, who share some of their genes. The idea behind kin selection is that even if an individual is sacrificing some of their own reproductive success by helping others, they can still indirectly promote the survival and reproduction of their own genes if the individuals being helped are genetically related to them.
In other words, if an individual helps their close relatives, they are increasing the chances of passing on shared genes to future generations, and this can be favored by natural selection. This concept was popularized by biologist W.D. Hamilton, who proposed the idea of inclusive fitness to explain the evolution of altruistic behaviors.
Overall, the concepts of altruism and kin selection are important in understanding how apparently selfless behaviors can arise and persist in a population through the process of natural selection. By helping close relatives, individuals indirectly promote the survival of their own genes and increase their evolutionary fitness.