Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Leo Tiokhin, Karthik Panchanathan, Paul E. Smaldino, Daniel Lakens
Summary: Criteria for recognizing and rewarding scientists primarily focus on individual contributions. This creates a conflict between what is best for scientists' careers and what is best for science. In this article, the authors propose using the theory of multilevel selection to modify incentives and align individual and collective interests in science. Shifting the level of selection from individuals to groups can help address problems such as accounting for diverse contributions, reducing individual-level competition, and promoting team science.
PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Biology
Manus M. Patten, Martijn A. Schenkel, J. Arvid Agren
Summary: The paradox of the organism refers to the observation that organisms appear to function as coherent purposeful entities, despite the potential for within-organismal components to erode them from within. This study revisits the paradox, outlining its conception and relationship to adaptation debates. It reviews how selfish elements exploit organisms, introduces a classification scheme, and discusses how organisms can maintain their status as the primary fitness-maximizing agent.
BIOLOGICAL REVIEWS
(2023)
Review
Biology
Darren P. Croft, Michael N. Weiss, Mia L. K. Nielsen, Charli Grimes, Michael A. Cant, Samuel Ellis, Daniel W. Franks, Rufus A. Johnstone
Summary: This article discusses the importance of kinship dynamics and their impact on social behavior and life history evolution, highlighting new insights brought by the kinship dynamics approach in behavior and life history evolution, and exploring new research directions that analyzing kinship dynamics could provide.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Sergey Gavrilets, Mahendra Duwal Shrestha
Summary: Human behavior and collective actions are significantly influenced by social institutions, and understanding how successful social institutions are established and spread across groups and societies is crucial. Selective imitation and self-interested design are two contrasting mechanisms in converging to cooperative social institutions, with foresight being a novel approach that can enhance leaders' willingness to punish free-riders and promote effective collective action. This approach is applicable to various social institutions and can lead to faster convergence to equilibrium when combined with selective imitation.
EVOLUTION AND HUMAN BEHAVIOR
(2021)
Article
Biology
Eva Schultner, Tobias Wallner, Benjamin Dofka, Jeanne Bruelhart, Juergen Heinze, Dalial Freitak, Tamara Pokorny, Jan Oettler
Summary: In the ant species Cardiocondyla obscurior, queens have control over the allocation of queen-worker caste, as shown by the presence of crystalline deposits that distinguish castes throughout development. While size and weight differences were found in late development, there were no discernible differences in traits that may be used in social interactions. These findings, along with previous studies, suggest that queens control reproductive allocation in C. obscurior, aligning the fitness interests of colony members to optimize resource allocation.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2023)
Review
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Dennis Papadopoulos
Summary: Shared intentionality is a specific form of shared agency where a group can be understood to have an intention. Humans, unlike other great apes, share intentions, making them better equipped for collaboration. However, applying shared intentionality to groups in evolutionary science is challenging. To challenge Western conceptions of cooperation, Zhuangzi's philosophy of (in)action treats individual actions as a form of co-action and highlights the need for behavioral flexibility in constant coordination.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Biology
Jeff Smith, R. Fredrik Inglis
Summary: Kin selection and multilevel selection theory are often used to interpret experiments about the evolution of cooperation and social behavior among microbes, but they are mostly used as conceptual heuristics. This study evaluates how these theories perform as quantitative analysis tools, finding that the classical fitness models of both theories are often unsuitable for microbial systems due to strong selection and non-additive effects. Analyzing both individual and group fitness outcomes can help clarify the biology of selection and reveal untapped potential for understanding social evolution in all branches of life.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2021)
Article
Biology
Mauricio Gonzalez-Forero, Jorge Pena
Summary: Mothers in eusocial species can induce offspring to help through hormones, pheromones, or behavioral displays, with offspring often helping voluntarily. The converted helping hypothesis suggests that maternal manipulation of assistance can eventually lead to voluntary help, resolving parent-offspring conflict. This mechanism results in reproductive division of labor, increased queen fertility, and honest queen signaling to suppress worker reproduction, recovering diverse features of eusociality.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Manasi S. Gangan, Marcos M. Vasconcelos, Urbashi Mitra, Odilon Camara, James Q. Boedicker
Summary: Public goods are biomolecules that benefit cellular populations, and their production is energetically costly. This study investigates the regulation of a public good that increases carrying capacity. The timing of production has a significant impact on population fitness, balancing the cost and benefits of public good production.
Article
Ecology
Frank Figge, Andrea Stevenson Thorpe, Jason Good
Summary: Efficient use of natural resources is crucial for sustainable use, with circular resource use being more eco-efficient. The overall eco-efficiency in circular systems is greater than the sum of individual firms' eco-efficiencies, and selecting only highly eco-efficient firms may not increase overall eco-efficiency. Resources assessment and management should be shifted from the individual to the group level in circular economy systems.
ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS
(2021)
Article
Microbiology
Alessio Bernasconi, Julien Alassimone, Bruce A. McDonald, Andrea Sanchez-Vallet
Summary: Mixed infections can affect the transmission and epidemic outcome of pathogens. In the mixed infections of Zymoseptoria tritici, the most competitive strains tend to exclude their competitors. The outcome of competition depends on both the host genotype and the genotypes of the competing strains, and the differences in reproductive potential among strains have a strong impact on their competitive ability.
ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Biology
Antonio M. M. Rodrigues, Jessica L. Barker, Elva J. H. Robinson
Summary: Sociality is common among animals, but intergroup cooperation is rare. This study explores the reasons for its rarity and the conditions that promote its evolution. The researchers find that dispersal modes play a crucial role in intergroup interactions, and that localized dispersal is more likely to lead to the evolution of intergroup aggression, tolerance, or even altruism. However, the evolution of intergroup cooperation may have ecological impacts that affect its own evolution. The study also discusses empirical evidence of intergroup cooperation in ants and primates.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2023)
Editorial Material
Biology
Carsten K. W. De Dreu, Zegni Triki
Summary: Intergroup conflict and warfare are not limited to humans but are also observed in various group-living species. This theme issue provides novel insights into intergroup conflict across taxa, integrating theory, research, and review from biology, anthropology, and economics. It presents a coherent framework of intergroup conflict as multi-level games of strategy, exploring mechanisms and consequences of participating in intergroup conflict. Additionally, it highlights cutting-edge contributions on within-group heterogeneities, leadership, social organization, and the effects of climate change and environmental degradation on intergroup relations.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Biology
Gladys Barragan-Jason, Maxime Cauchoix, Anne Regnier, Marie Bourjade, Astrid Hopfensitz, Alexis S. Chaine
Summary: Young French schoolchildren aged 3-10 cooperated less successfully with siblings than with non-kin children in a cooperative game. Children with larger social networks cooperated better and the perception of friendship among non-friends improved after cooperating. These results suggest that non-kin cooperation in humans during middle childhood may serve to forge and extend non-kin social relationships and create opportunities for future collaboration beyond kin.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2021)
Article
Political Science
Susanna P. Campbell, Jessica Di Salvatore
Summary: One of the important contributions of UN peace operations is that they not only solve the security dilemma that inhibits combatant disarmament and prevents power sharing, but also enable governments to implement redistributive power-sharing reforms contained in peace agreements, along with their broader peace processes.
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
(2023)