ArticleJournal of evolutionary biology2015
Multilevel selection theory and evidence: a critique of Gardner, 2015.
Article in Journal of evolutionary biology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- Multilevel Selection in the Margins: A Review of Its Representation in Undergraduate Biology Textbooks.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Ronald Fisher and group selection.History and philosophy of the life sciences · 2025Article
- Article
- Death happy: adaptive ageing and its evolution by kin selection in organisms with colonial ecology.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Nutrient status shapes selfish mitochondrial genome dynamics across different levels of selection.eLife · 2020Article
- Genomic regions influencing aggressive behavior in honey bees are defined by colony allele frequencies.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- The Price equation and the unity of social evolution theory.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Shearing in flow environment promotes evolution of social behavior in microbial populations.eLife · 2018Article
- Approaches to Macroevolution: 2. Sorting of Variation, Some Overarching Issues, and General Conclusions.Evolutionary biology · 2017Article
- The foundress's dilemma: group selection for cooperation among queens of the harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex californicus.Scientific reports · 2016Article
- Kin and multilevel selection in social evolution: a never-ending controversy?F1000Research · 2016Review
- Plant cooperation.AoB PLANTS · 2015Review
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1 author.
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Abstract
Gardner (2015) recently developed a model of a 'Genetical Theory of Multilevel Selection, which is a thoughtfully developed, but flawed model. The model's flaws appear to be symptomatic of common misunderstandings of the multi level selection (MLS) literature and the recent quantitative genetic literature. I use Gardner's model as a guide for highlighting how the MLS literature can address the misconceptions found in his model, and the kin selection literature in general. I discuss research on the efficacy of group selection, the roll of indirect genetic effects in affecting the response to selection and the heritability of group-level traits. I also discuss why the Price multilevel partition should not be used to partition MLS, and why contextual analysis and, by association, direct fitness are appropriate for partitioning MLS. Finally, I discuss conceptual issues around questions concerning the level at which fitness is measured, the units of selection, and I present a brief outline of a model of selection in class-structured populations. I argue that the results derived from the MLS research tradition can inform kin selection research and models, and provide insights that will allow researchers to avoid conceptual flaws such as those seen in the Gardner model.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.