Kin selection, social structure, gene flow, and the evolution of chimpanzees.
Hypotheses about chimpanzee social behavior, phylogeography, and evolution were evaluated by noninvasive genotyping of free-ranging individuals from 20 African sites. Degrees of relatedness among individuals in one community were inferred from allele-sharing at eight nuclear simple sequence repeat (SSR) loci. Males are related on the order of half-siblings, and homozygosity is significantly increased at several SSR loci compared to Hardy-Weinberg expectations. These data support the kin-selection hypothesis for the evolution of cooperation among males. Sequence variation patterns at two mitochondrial loci indicate historically high long-distance gene flow and clarify the relationships among three allopatric subspecies. The unexpectedly large genetic distance between the western subspecies, Pan troglodytes verus, and the other two subspecies suggests a divergence time of about 1.58 million years. This result, if confirmed at nuclear loci and supported by eco-behavioral data, implies that P. t. verus should be elevated to full species rank.
Morin
P A
PA
Department of Biology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla 92093-0116.
Moore
J J
JJ
Chakraborty
R
R
Jin
L
L
Goodall
J
J
Woodruff
D S
DS
D000349:Africa; D000483:Alleles; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D005075:Biological Evolution; D004247:DNA / Q000032:analysis / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D014644:Genetic Variation; D006197:Hair / Q000737:chemistry; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D002679:Pan troglodytes / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000523:psychology; D010802:Phylogeny; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D012091:Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid; D012919:Social Behavior; D013636:Tanzania
D004247:DNA