Exact Versus Probabilistic Coefficients of Relationship: Some Implications for Sociobiology

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Abstract
Whereas coefficients of relationship between parents and offspring in sexually breeding, diploid organisms are always exactly 1/2, those among full siblings have a mean of 1/2 but with a nonzero variance. As a consequence, greater variability in sibling-sibling interactions than in parent-offspring interactions is predicted, with this variability itself a function of diploid number, recombination index, and parental manipulation. Various strategic implications of these probabilistic r''s are discussed in terms of fitness maximization for parents and offspring and simple expressions for 3 different kinds of coefficients of relationship are derived.