On Thu, 3 Aug 2006 07:58:18 -0400, Peter Borst <[log in to unmask]> 
wrote:

>If they had the egg stealing trait, would this lead to their survival and
>the perpetuation of this trait? Of course not. They would survive as a
>colony, but the trait would not be retained because the blood line of the
>colony has been replaced by that of another colony!
>
>Contrast this with the trait for stealing honey from other hives. If
>colonies lacked this trait, they could starve when they ran out of food
>supplies; if they have this trait, they gain an advantage.
>
>An advantage allows them to outcompete other colonies and therefore the
>trait would be passed on to future generations. A trait for egg stealing
>will never be passed on. If the colony simply perishes -- or if it survives
>by stealing eggs -- the net result is the same: that blood line is 
finished.

First, I hope the moderators will allow the long quote.  I've been 
wondering about genetic selection mechanisms, and Waldemar's and Dave's 
recent posts on the subject of removing drones has brought me back to some 
similar thoughts.

It seems in the quote above that Peter assumes that all genetic selection 
takes place at the colony level, and particularly not on any larger level.  
This seems questionable to me.  Incidentally, I am very skeptical of "egg 
stealing," but that has nothing to do with what I'm wanting to say here.  
What I want to ask here is whether there couldn't be any genetic advantage 
to a trait that didn't perpetuate the exact blood line of the specific 
colony.  In other words, is it possible that a trait could help perpetuate 
a race or a whole "family" of colonies without perpetuating the direct blood
line of the colony exhibiting the trait?  Although this kind of behavoir 
would seemingly have to be a very minor selection factor, I'm inclined to 
think it's a possibility.

The examples I had in mind were the "egg stealing" of the previous thread
and, secondly, a non-robbing trait.  Let me give a human analogy to "egg 
stealing."  Say one group of people has a cultural practice of adopting the
orphaned children of relatives.  Compare that group with another group that 
allows its orphans to die.  Could the group with orphan adopting trait not 
theoretically gain a genetic advantage?  I guess what I'm saying is: is 
there no genetic advantage to perpetuating the blood line of a close 
relative?  Or on an even larger level, is there no genetic advantage to 
perpetuating the species as a whole?

As for non-robbing, I was thinking that while robbing could be an advantage 
to particular colonies, robbing could be inefficient behavoir for a whole 
population (of all the colonies in an area.)  In other words, while one 
colony might benefit, all the colonies would suffer a net loss of 
production, because energy would be devoted to zero-sum-gain activity that 
might otherwise be devoted to net-sum-gain activity.  I'm not trying to say 
this would *necessarily* be a genetic disadvantage, but it could be, 
couldn't it, at least as one factor?  Couldn't the advantage of greater-
than-colony level groupings matter at all in genetic selection?

Eric

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