How Kin Selection Spreads Helpful Traits

Inclusive fitness explains why animals may help relatives even at a personal cost. It describes how an individual can pass on genes through its own offspring and through the offspring of close relatives that share those genes. When help increases a relative’s reproductive success, the helper’s inclusive fitness can also rise...

Inclusive fitness refers to the extent that an individual passes down their genes both directly through the production of offspring and indirectly by helping close relatives reproduce their shared genes.

For example, worker honeybees who are female do not reproduce but they engage in altruistic behaviors such as bringing back food that h...