250T Poster - Population Genetics
Thursday June 09, 8:30 PM - 9:15 PM

Authors:
Kaleda Denton ¹; Yoav Ram ^2,3,4; Uri Liberman ⁵; Marcus Feldman ¹

Affiliations:
1) Department of Biology, Stanford University, USA; 2) School of Computer Science, Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Israel; 3) School of Zoology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Israel; 4) Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Israel; 5) School of Mathematical Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Keywords:
Other (Coevolution)

Conformist transmission entails that the probability of adopting a more common cultural variant exceeds its frequency in the population, whereas anti-conformist transmission occurs if the reverse is true. Because the variant that an individual adopts can affect its biological fitness, there may be gene-culture co-evolution of such transmission biases. First, we re-visit a widely used model of conformity where offspring sample a number n of "role models," which is often assumed to be three. If n >= 5, evolutionary dynamics can be more complex than previously assumed: stable frequency cycles or chaos can occur, and new polymorphic equilibria may exist. Second, we investigate the conditions under which a rare genetic modifier of the extent of conformity or number of role models can invade a population. Our results show that near a stable equilibrium with two variants present, the variant that confers higher fitness is more common, so a modifier of conformity invades the population if it decreases individuals’ level of anti-conformity. Similarly, a modifier of n invades if the level of anti-conformity with the modified n is less than that with the resident n. Finally, we investigate the case of population subdivision with migration and find that the common claim that conformity can maintain between-group differences is not always true. Therefore, the effect of conformity on the evolution of cooperation by group selection may be more complicated than previously stated. Understanding the evolutionary dynamics under (anti-)conformity may have implications for research on human and nonhuman animal behavior, the evolution of cooperation, and frequency-dependent transmission in general.