The factors that favor adaptive habitat construction versus non-adaptive
environmental conditioning
Abstract
Adaptive habitat construction is a process by which individuals alter
their environment so as to increase their (inclusive) fitness. Such
alterations are a subset of the myriad ways that individuals condition
their environment. We present an individual-based model of habitat
construction to explore what factors might favor selection when the
benefits of environmental alterations are shared by individuals of the
same species. Our results confirm the predictions of inclusive fitness
and group selection theory and expectations based on previous models
that construction will be more favored when its benefits are more likely
to be directed to self or near kin. We found that temporal variation had
no effect on the evolution of construction. For spatial heterogeneity,
construction was disfavored when the spatial pattern of movement did not
match the spatial pattern of environmental heterogeneity, especially
when there was spatial heterogeneity in the optimal amount of
construction. Under those conditions, very strong selection was
necessary to favor genetic differentiation of construction propensity
among demes. We put forth a constitutive theory for the evolution of
adaptive habitat construction that unifies our model with previous
verbal and quantitative models into a formal conceptual framework.