The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition (Oxford Landmark Science) — You scratch my back, I’ll ride on yours

1. 1. Naked mole rats live in large underground colonies with a single breeding queen, similar to social insects.
2. 2. Mole rat workers are divided by size: smallest dig and transport soil, largest may act as soldiers or food storage.
3. 3. Naked mole rats lack a dispersing reproductive caste, which puzzles Darwinian intuition.
4. 4. The author hypothesizes that naked mole rats might produce transformed reproductives under certain conditions, like locusts.
5. 5. Hamilton's haplodiploidy hypothesis is often overemphasized, overshadowing his broader kin selection theory.
6. 6. Termites achieve high relatedness among siblings through cyclic inbreeding, analogous to haplodiploidy.
7. 7. Monogamy alone can make siblings as genetically close as offspring, explaining 'helping at the nest' in birds and mammals.
8. 8. Naked mole rats exemplify the 'going concern' principle: staying in a productive colony is more beneficial than leaving.
9. 9. Trivers and Hare's prediction of a 3:1 female-biased sex ratio in social insects is debated, with alternative explanations from Hamilton.
10. 10. Populations can stabilize at different ESS, and those at a 'cheat' equilibrium are more likely to go extinct, favoring group selection.