- Green beard genes could explain altruism in nature. Some examples of Altruism-
- Honey Bees: Worker bees devote their lives to foraging and caring for the queen and her offspring without reproducing themselves.
- Widow Spiders: Males allow themselves to be eaten by fertilized females to nourish them and their offspring.
- Meerkats: Act as sentinels, alerting the clan to predators instead of foraging for food.
- Dictyostelium discoideum, a social amoeba that exhibits altruistic behaviour when forming multicellular aggregates. About 20% of the amoebae sacrifice themselves to form the stalk, while the rest become spores.
- Green-beard genes enable recognition and preferential cooperation among individuals carrying the same gene.
- This could also lead to harmful behaviour towards those with different gene versions.
| Key Genes (tgrB1 and tgrC1) These genes encode proteins that ensure cooperation and prevent cheating by enabling self-recognition and altruistic behaviour. If these genes are not expressed together, cooperation fails. Polymorphism: The tgr genes are highly variable, allowing amoebae to estimate kinship based on genetic similarity. Altruism is more likely when genes have little divergence, indicating kinship. Greater divergence suggests less kinship and makes cooperation riskier. | |
Dig Deeper: Read gene editing technologies like CRISPR-Cas9.
