Thus, the general model unifies the four

major models of

Thus, the general model unifies the four

major models of reproductive skew and is rich in its predictions, as each sub-model exhibits different qualitative and quantitative relationships between reproductive skew or intra-group conflict and the ecological and genetic factors that determine skew and conflict. The conditions favoring transitions among these sub-models also are precisely predicted by the general model. The general model accommodates data from acorn woodpeckers and primitively eusocial bees potentially can account for many of the highly varied empirical findings on reproductive skew. We suggest further research that focuses on (1) determining which model is suitable for certain species

Necrostatin-1 mouse and (2) understanding why and how various social animals resolve Apoptosis inhibitor their breeding conflict by different conflict resolution mechanisms. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“DNA methylation, an important and evolutionarily conserved epigenetic mechanism, is implicated in learning and memory processes in vertebrates, but its role in behaviour in invertebrates is unknown. We examined the role of DNA methylation in memory in the honey bee using an appetitive Pavlovian olfactory discrimination task, and by assessing the expression of DNA methyltransferase3, a key driver of epigenetic reprogramming. Here we report that DNA methyltransferase inhibition reduces acquisition retention and alters the extinction depending on treatment time, and DNA methyltransferase3 is upregulated after training. Our findings add to the understanding of epigenetic mechanisms in learning and memory, extending known roles of DNA methylation to appetitive and extinction memory, and for the first time implicate DNA methylation in memory in invertebrates. NeuroReport 21:812-816 (C) 2010 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.”
“Indirect reciprocity is one of the basic mechanisms to sustain mutual cooperation. Beneficial acts are returned, not by the

recipient, but by third parties. Indirect reciprocity is based on reputation and status: it pays to provide help be cause this makes one see more more likely to receive help in turn. The mechanism depends on knowing the past behavior of other players, and assessing that behavior. There are many different systems of assessing other individuals, which can be interpreted as rudimentary moral systems (i.e. view son what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’). In this paper, we describe the competition of some of the leading assessment rules called SUGDEN and KANDORI by analytic methods. We show that the sterner rule KANDORI has a slight advantage in the sense that KANDORI-players have more chance to earn higher pay off than SUGDEN-players in the presence of unconditional altruists.

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