Editing Behavioral ecology (section)

===Spite===
[[Hamilton's rule#Kin selection|Hamilton's rule]] can also predict spiteful behaviors between non-relatives.<ref name=Davies/> A spiteful behavior is one that is harmful to both the actor and to the recipient. Spiteful behavior is favored if the actor is less related to the recipient than to the average member of the population making r negative and if rB-C is still greater than zero. [[Spite (game theory)|Spite]] can also be thought of as a type of altruism because harming a non-relative, by taking his resources for example, could also benefit a relative, by allowing him access to those resources. Furthermore, certain spiteful behaviors may provide harmful short term consequences to the actor but also give long term reproductive benefits.<ref name=spite>{{cite journal|last=Foster |first=Kevin |author2=Tom Wenseleers|author3=Francis L. W. Ratnieks|title=Spite: Hamilton's unproven theory|journal=Annales Zoologici Fennici |date=10 September 2001|pages=229–238 |url=http://www.sekj.org/PDF/anz38-free/anz38-229p.pdf}}</ref> Many behaviors that are commonly thought of as spiteful are actually better explained as being selfish, that is benefiting the actor and harming the recipient, and true spiteful behaviors are rare in the animal kingdom.

An example of spite is the sterile soldiers of the [[polyembryonic]] parasitoid wasp. A female wasp lays a male and a female egg in a caterpillar. The eggs divide asexually, creating many genetically identical male and female larvae. Sterile soldier wasps also develop and attack the relatively unrelated brother larvae so that the genetically identical sisters have more access to food.<ref name="Davies" />

Another example is bacteria that release [[bacteriocins]].<ref name="Davies" /> The bacteria that releases the bacteriocin may have to die to do so, but most of the harm is to unrelated individuals who are killed by the bacteriocin. This is because the ability to produce and release the bacteriocin is linked to an immunity to it. Therefore, close relatives to the releasing cell are less likely to die than non-relatives.