To discover our results and read our article: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

One of our results shows that local dispersal, by increasing the competition between relatives, can not only prevent the evolution of helping but also promote the evolution of harmful behavior between relatives 👿!

To answer these questions, we use a neighbor-modulated fitness analysis and compute the cost-benefit ratios of helping in different environments.

What are the advantages of the different helping benefits in different environments? Should I help my neighbor or their offspring? 👶/🧓

If individuals disperse near their natal home, should we observe more help due to being around relatives 😇? Or the higher competition between relatives makes individuals fight each other 😈?

Here, we ask how the way individuals are dispersing 🔀 changes how they are helping each other after a brood failure 🚫 🪺.

Excited to share my latest paper, co-written with Geoff Wild, titled
"Evolution of redirected help with stepping-stone dispersal"!

Our results provide a new perspective on the evolution of altruistic behaviors and highlight the importance of life-history.

The emergence of redirected help depends on the benefits provided and on life-history features such as brood failure, dispersal, and survival rates.

In addition, we find that survival benefits can drive the emergence of redirected help better than fecundity benefits, which contrasts with previous literature.

Here, we use inclusive fitness models to study the evolution of redirected helping and find that population viscosity does not prevent redirected helping from emerging.

However, these benefits may not be sufficient for help to emerge in a viscous population, where additional costs arise from kin competition.

What happens when a bird suffers brood failure? Well, it can decide to help a related neighbor. This may look like a no-brainer: if I help, I can get some inclusive fitness benefits!

My second paper, written with @geoffwild.bsky.social, has been published in @journal-evo.bsky.social
! Title: Selective advantage of redirected helping in a viscous population: doi.org/10.1093/evol....