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Abstract: "Does Mother Nature Punish Rotten Kids"
by Carl T. Bergstrom and Theodore C. Bergstrom
The theory of parent-offspring conflict predicts that mothers and their
offspring may not agree about how resources should be allocated among family
members. A kid, for example, may favor a later weaning date than does its
mother. Despite the mother's physical superiority, it may be
that the kid is able to manipulate her behavior. In this paper,
we investigate a two-locus population genetic model of weaning conflict
in which offspring can attempt to extort resources from their parents by
reducing their own chances of survival if their demands are not met. We
find that the frequency of recombination between the genes controlling
parental behavior and those controlling juvenile behavior determines the
evolutionaryoutcome of this genetic conflict. When these genes are tightly
linked, the offspring is likely to act so as to further the parents' reproductive
interests. When they are not, offspring can successfully "blackmail" their
parents into providing additional resources.
Keywords Parent-offspring conflict, evolution, altruism, rotten-kid
theorem