Evolutionary suicide is an evolutionary mechanism where adaptation at the level of the individual results in a situation where the entire population goes extinct. This process is different to group selection, and arises where individual fitness is coupled with the fitness of the population. The eye is an adaptation. ... In biology and ecology, extinction is the ceasing of existence of a species or group of species. ... In evolutionary biology, group selection refers to the idea that alleles can become fixed or spread in a population because of the benefits they bestow on groups, regardless of the fitness of individuals within that group. ...

Models of evolutionary suicide have generally come from scientists using the mathematical modelling technique known as adaptive dynamics, where models of evolution can be combined with models of population dynamics. This allows the scientist to predict how population density will change as a given trait invades the population. Adaptive Dynamics is a set of techniques for studying long-term phenotypical evolution developed during the 1990s. ... Population dynamics is the study of marginal and long-term changes in the numbers, individual weights and age composition of individuals in one or several populations, and biological and environmental processes influencing those changes. ... In biology, a trait or character is a genetically inherited feature of an organism. ...

Evolutionary suicide has also been referred to as "Darwinian extinction", "Runaway selection to self-extinction" or "Evolutionary collapse". The idea is similar in concept to the Tragedy of the Commons. It has been suggested that Tyranny of the Commons be merged into this article or section. ...

As such, evolutionary suicide remains a theoretical possibility. Very few studies have actually demonstrated it, either in the laboratory or in nature, but this is due to the difficulties associated with observing the exact causes of an extinction [1].

References and external links

• Gyllenberg M. & K. Parvinen. 2001. Necessary and sufficient conditions for evolutionary suicide. Bull. Math. Biol. 63, 981-993

• Gyllenberg M., K. Parvinen & U. Dieckmann. 2002. Evolutionary suicide and evolution of dispersal in structured metapopulations. J. Math. Biol. 45, 79-105 (IIASA Interim Report IR-00-056)

• Parvinen K. 2005. Evolutionary suicide. Acta Biotheoretica 53, 241-264.

• Rankin D.J. & A. Lopez-Sepulcre. 2005. Can adaptation lead to extinction? Oikos 111, 616-619