S. Lundberg et Hg. Smith, PARENT-OFFSPRING CONFLICTS OVER REPRODUCTIVE EFFORTS - VARIATIONS UPON A THEME BY CHARNOV, Journal of theoretical biology, 170(2), 1994, pp. 215-218
A novel formulation of the theory of parent-offspring conflict is prop
osed. The basis of this formulation is an application of traditional l
ife-history theory in combination with simple genetic arguments. The a
dvanatage with this approach is conceptual, and the formulation is not
in variance with earlier studies in the area. Parent-offspring confli
ct is, in our forumlation, not seen as a conflict between individuals,
but as a tradeoff-an age-specific selection pressure acting on a trai
t, which is favourable when an individual is offspring and disadvantag
eous when it becomes parent. Using an ESS approach we investigate a si
mple offspring-wins problem: we find that a gene causing assertiveness
of offspring will increase when rare, because the advantage thus gain
ed by an assertive individual when young exceeds the cost incurred as
adult by that half of its own offspring which belongs to the same asse
rtive genotype.