How does the competition for limited resources affect genetics? What factors can influence competition between animals?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The competition for limited resources creates natural conflict in the animal world. In The Selfish Gene<\/em>, the competition is expected because the goal is to ensure your genes live on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read more about the competition for limited resources and how it relates to genetics, as described in The Selfish Gene<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Because Earth is a finite world with finite resources, there\u2019s <\/strong>a natural competition for the limited resources among the creatures who inhabit Earth. In this chapter we discuss various ways that family members compete with each other\u2014their own selfish interests conflict with their shared desires to have their offspring and siblings survive. We\u2019ll also explore the natural conflict between mates, each of whom would benefit from the other contributing more resources to their offspring. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, we examine the role of sexual attractiveness, especially among species where the male doesn\u2019t <\/em>engage in this competition for limited resources between mates, but simply leaves to find another female to impregnate. Sexual attraction is especially important for such species, because there\u2019s no chance that the mate will stick around to contribute to raising the offspring. In that case, all that matters is finding the best, most fit mates through which animals can pass on their genes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Every animal has a limited amount of resources to invest in furthering its genes. <\/strong>This limit represents the total amount of food that an animal can gather or make, as well as the total energy it can expend in caring for and protecting others. That natural limit raises the question of whether parents (and other relatives) can have favorites\u2014not in the human sense of \u201cliking\u201d one child more than another, but just in the sense of distributing those resources unevenly among its children. So, there’s competition for limited resources even without direct, overt combat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While it might seem like there\u2019s no genetic reason to do so\u2014all of an animal\u2019s offspring have 50% of its genes\u2014wise investments can maximize the number of surviving offspring. <\/strong>For instance, if forced to choose between the lives of an older child and a younger one, the animal should pick the elder. It will need less care (and therefore fewer resources) to reach maturity and pass on its genes. However, if forced to choose to feed one or the other\u2014not in an immediate life-or-death situation\u2014oftentimes animals will choose to feed their younger children because the older ones are more likely to fend for themselves. This is another example of implicit competition for limited resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, many animals will not care for the \u201crunt\u201d of a litter, because it is less likely to survive and reproduce than others. In extreme cases parents may even feed the runt to its siblings, or eat it themselves. Though it seems contradictory, a selfish gene may even cause runts to give up and die in favor of their stronger siblings, so as not to drain resources from individuals with better chances of survival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There comes a time when it makes sense, from a selfish gene\u2019s perspective, for the parent to stop having children and focus on raising more distant relatives. <\/strong>If a child would have less than a 50% chance of survival\u2014such as if the animal is too old to effectively raise more offspring\u2014then mathematically the animal should devote its efforts to raising a grandchild instead. The grandchild is more distantly related, but has a much better chance of surviving to reproduce. Of course the animals don\u2019t consciously calculate these odds, these behaviors are programmed by genes that have survived and outcompeted their alleles. As a side note, this may be a genetic explanation for menopause in humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This logic also applies to siblings who have to compete with one another for food and care. <\/strong>If a sibling would receive more than double the benefit that the individual itself would\u2014for instance, if the sibling is too young to find its own food and needs the parents\u2019 care to survive\u2014selfish gene theory dictates that the individual should want <\/em>those resources to go to the sibling instead. The \u201cdouble\u201d cutoff is because the sibling has half the relation that the individual does to itself\u201450% instead of 100%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How does the competition for limited resources affect genetics? What factors can influence competition between animals? The competition for limited resources creates natural conflict in the animal world. In The Selfish Gene, the competition is expected because the goal is to ensure your genes live on. Read more about the competition for limited resources and how it relates to genetics, as described in The Selfish Gene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,24],"tags":[187],"class_list":["post-23364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economics","category-society","tag-the-selfish-gene","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nFinite Resources on Earth<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Universal Competition for Limited Resources<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n