Pathways to Social Evolution: Reciprocity, Relatedness, and Synergy

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Penn collection
Departmental Papers (Biology)
Degree type
Discipline
Subject
behavioral responses
class structure
cooperation
genetic assortment
nonadditive fitness
Evolution
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Funder
Grant number
License
Copyright date
Distributor
Related resources
Author
Van Cleve, Jeremy
Contributor
Abstract

Many organisms live in populations structured by space and by class, exhibit plastic responses to their social partners, and are subject to nonadditive ecological and fitness effects. Social evolution theory has long recognized that all of these factors can lead to different selection pressures but has only recently attempted to synthesize how these factors interact. Using models for both discrete and continuous phenotypes, we show that analyzing these factors in a consistent framework reveals that they interact with one another in ways previously overlooked. Specifically, behavioral responses (reciprocity), genetic relatedness, and synergy interact in nontrivial ways that cannot be easily captured by simple summary indices of assortment. We demonstrate the importance of these interactions by showing how they have been neglected in previous synthetic models of social behavior both within and between species. These interactions also affect the level of behavioral responses that can evolve in the long run; proximate biological mechanisms are evolutionarily stable when they generate enough responsiveness relative to the level of responsiveness that exactly balances the ecological costs and benefits. Given the richness of social behavior across taxa, these interactions should be a boon for empirical research as they are likely crucial for describing the complex relationship linking ecology, demography, and social behavior.

Advisor
Date Range for Data Collection (Start Date)
Date Range for Data Collection (End Date)
Digital Object Identifier
Series name and number
Publication date
2014-08-01
Journal title
Evolution
Volume number
Issue number
Publisher
Publisher DOI
Journal Issue
Comments
Recommended citation
Collection