Multi-level selection in biology

TL;DR

This paper refines the concept of multi-level selection in biology by splitting existing categories into more specific aspects, illustrating how emergent group properties influence particle selection and survival, especially in social group formation.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed subdivision of multi-level selection into four aspects, clarifying how group properties affect individual selection and evolution.

Findings

Multi-level selection can be split into four distinct aspects.

Emergent group properties influence particle selection and survival.

Brain mechanisms like emotional systems underpin social group formation.

Abstract

Okasha (2006) proposed distinguishing aspects of selection: those based in particle level traits (MSL1), and those based in group level traits (MSL2). It is proposed here that MSL1 can usefully be further split into two aspects, one (MLS1E) representing selection of particles based in their individual interaction with environmental properties, and one (MLS1G) representing Multi Level Selection of particles based in their relation to group properties. Similarly MSL2 can be split into two parts based in this distinction. This splitting enables a characterisation of how emergent group properties can affect particle selection, and thus affect group traits that are important for survival. This proposal is illustrated by considering a key aspect of animal and human life, namely the formation of social groups, which greatly enhances survival prospects. The biological mechanism that underlies such group formation is the existence of innate primary emotional systems studied by Panksepp (1998), effective through the ascending systems in the brain that diffuse neurotransmitters such as dopamine and norepinephrine through the cortex. Evolutionary emergence of such brain mechanisms, and hence the emergence of social groups, can only result from multi-level selection characterised by the combination of MSL2 and MLS1G. The distinctions proposed here should be useful in other contexts.