Аннотация:Group adaptations do not need group selection
The article provides an overview of the works on different species of birds and
mammals (and other vertebrates to a lesser extent), which show the origin of group
adaptations that benefit society as a whole or the entire population developing
a new landscape, but costly and / or risky for each of the individuals.
Their formation and development are recorded in three cases: urbanization
of «wild» birds and mammal species culminating in the emergence of specialized
urban populations; animal communication, when individuals in communities interact
not directly, but the action of one and the counter-action of the other is mediated
by a specific set of demonstrations, visual and acoustic, with a characteristic shape
and signal function; in the formation of a family-group lifestyle of rodents.
The objective of the research was to investigate whether the formation of group
adaptations (at least in these three cases) really requires «multiplication of entities» –
the use of the concept of group selection or, like the others, these adaptations can
be explained by the action of individual selection. In all three cases, it turns out that
the formation of the corresponding group adaptations is an action of individual
selection, but influencing individuals not independent, but connected by a certain
structure – social or population (spatial-ethological) to the corresponding system
of supra-individual level. In all cases it turns out that first of all the structure
of the system is transformed, and only then there is the process of selection
of individuals who are the most adapted to the changed relationships, i.e.
the selection is stabilizing rather than moving.