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	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

While Nesse¹ enumerates the possible ways in which low mood and/or depression may be adaptive for an individual, another possibility is that depression, with its known increase in morbidity and mortality, may be maladaptive to the individual, but adaptive to the species. Cyranowski et al² point out the increase in depression and sensitivity to loss of relationships in females during childbearing years.

It may be that in small bands of ancestral human hunter-gatherers, when a member lost her or his mate, the survival of the tribe was enhanced by the reduced food intake of the remaining member of the pair via depression or ultimately death, leaving more food for those who were successfully reproducing. The genes enhancing a depressive reaction to loss would be carried by the close kin of a depressed individual, and the enhanced survival of these kin would promote the increase of depressogenic genes in the population. . . . [Full Text of this Article]