User:Alliemunts/sandbox

In Plants
When it comes to altruism in kin/non-kin recognition, few studies have focused on this trait in crops. Despite most crops growing in monocultures, there is evidence that they are able to recognize kin and other cultivars. For example, cultivated soybean plants were able to recognize a distant ancestor and unrelated neighbors. In that experiment, plants were grown in combinations of relation to each other (same cultivar or different cultivar) in pots and their biomass of stems, leaves, and roots were measured to see how the plants responded growing next to kin or non-kin. Crops, unlike wild plants, are highly cultivated. The evolution of traits such as altruism can thus be bred into them through the selection of the trait. In agriculture, the importance of yield is stressed, therefore breeding crop cultivars to favor altruism can decrease competitiveness and increase yield. It has been shown that using mass selection early in the breeding process selects against altruism in an individual, but using mixed individual and group selection favors altruism.