Yellow-bellied marmots live in colonies with a single dominant male Maria Janicki/Alamy
Friendly groups of marmots could help settle an enduring debate in evolution – whether the characteristics of a group can be more important to an individual鈥檚 chances of survival than the characteristics of that individual. An analysis of their behaviour is the first evidence in wild animals for this evolutionary idea, known as multilevel selection
鈥淲hat we found is that the group traits are under just as strong selection as the individual traits, if not slightly stronger,鈥 says then at the University of California, Los…
