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Science 20 June 2003:
Vol. 300. no. 5627, pp. 1949 - 1951
DOI: 10.1126/science.1083109
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Reports

Morphs, Dispersal Behavior, Genetic Similarity, and the Evolution of Cooperation

Barry Sinervo1,2* and Jean Clobert2

Genetic similarity owing to kin relationship is often invoked to explain the evolution of social cooperation. In this study, male color morphs of side-blotched lizards settle nonrandomly with respect to genetic similarity. Blue morphs tend to settle in close proximity to other blue morphs with high genetic similarity. Blue neighbors have three times the average fitness of blue males lacking such neighbors. Conversely, genetically similar males depress fitness of the orange morph. Moreover, orange males are hyperdispersed with respect to genetic similarity. Pedigree and dispersal data show that genetically similar blue neighbors are not kin. Instead, conditions for the evolution of dispersal and cooperation are promoted by an emergent property of the morph locus that increases genetic similarity within morphs: genome-wide correlational selection links many traits to the morph locus, including settlement behavior.

1 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Earth and Marine Sciences Building, A316, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA.
2 Laboratoire D'Ecologie, CNRS-UMR 7625, Bat A–7eme etage-Case 237, 7 Quai Saint Bernard, F-75252 Paris Cedex 05, France.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: sinervo{at}biology.ucsc.edu

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