The Taylor-Frank method cannot be applied to some biologically important, continuous fitness functions

Abstract

The Taylor-Frank method for making kin selection models when fitness is a nonlinear function of a continuous phenotype requires this function to be differentiable. This assumption sometimes fails for biologically important fitness functions, for instance in microbial data and the theory of repeated n-person games, even when fitness functions are smooth and continuous. In these cases, the Taylor-Frank methodology cannot be used, and a more general form of direct fitness must replace the standard one to account for kin selection, even under weak selection.

9 pages, 1 figure