Social heredity as a process of biodiversity

Informations

Funding country

France

Acronym

SOC-H2

URL

-

Start date

10/1/2013

End date

-

Budget

338,928 EUR

Fundings

Abstract

Biology is undergoing a profound mutation stimulated by discoveries in various fields, including behavioral and developmental biology, as well as epigenetics and evolutionary ecology. Hence, today the position that the inheritance of phenotypic variation only rests on genetic variation is no longer tenable and the model of heredity that is emerging incorporates genetic, and nongenetic inheritance into an ‘inclusive’ theory of evolution. In this context, evolutionary biologists, including members of this project, have underlined the importance of formalizing current discoveries in terms of heredity to allow the quantitative study of the various sources of phenotypic variation and their consequences in terms of evolution. This project adopts this emergent framework that integrates all forms on nongenetic inheritance into an inclusive theory of evolution. Cultural inheritance. SOC-H2 focuses on cultural inheritance, which has been suspected theoretically to strongly affect the course of evolution for a long time. This field emerged four decades ago in human sciences. It is now broadening into the field of animal culture, which is badly lacking of empirical and experimental evidence. SOC-H2 merges experimental and theoretical approaches to study the impact of cultural inheritance in evolution. It will perform the first thorough and rigorous experiment on animal culture. Position in the study of animal culture. SOC-H2 (i) provides the first rigorous demonstration that variation in female sexual preferences is due to social heredity in a non primate animal (4 criteria tested), (ii) on a trait that affects sexual selection durably, and (iii) quantifies the role of culture in parent-offspring resemblance. It does NOT study mechanisms of cultural transmission, nor conditions favoring the emergence of culture, informational dynamics generated by culture, nor differences between genetic and cultural heredity as all these questions can emerge only once cultural transmission has been demonstrated rigorously. At this stage it would be premature to invest in the study of such mechanisms. Components. SOC-H2 has two components. Task 1 is a suite of experiments in the sailfin molly (Poecilia latipinna) to test whether female sexual preferences are transmitted socially. It fine tunes conditions to produce populations with two contrasting cultures. Task 2 estimates the part of inclusive heritability that results from genetic vs social heredity. It uses the recently proposed Double pedigree merging state of the art experimental and statistical methods. It measures the quantitative importance of social heredity. Mate choice copying in the sailfin molly strongly suggests that female mating preferences are inherited culturally. Task 3 is purely theoretical. It explores the evolutionary impact of culture on mate choice and whether it leads to modified sexual selection. Tasks 1 and 2 will feed those models that will be developed with economists from the Toulouse School of Economics. Consortium. Partners have published over 40 papers on the topic, jointly in top ranking journals on concepts, methods and empirical evidence. They are experts in the necessary fields: behavioral ecology, population biology, quantitative genetics, fish biology and modeling. Some participated to the emergence of Animal Culture and nongenetic inheritance by stressing the importance of formalizing discoveries on nongenetic transmission of phenotypic variation in terms of inheritance. The two partners have the facilities to harbor the large fish population for experiments. Scientific production. We study life’s fundamental properties to help human societies designing public policies that will be efficient because they are rooted in a keen understanding of the functioning of life. Its main product will thus be articles in high ranking journals. Each experimental and theoretical subtask will produce at least one scientific article.