Signalling and the evolution of cooperative foraging in dynamic environments.
Understanding cooperation in animal social groups remains a significant challenge for evolutionary theory. Observed behaviours that benefit others but incur some cost appear incompatible with classical notions of natural selection; however, these behaviours may be explained by concepts such as inclu...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2011-09-01
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| Series: | PLoS Computational Biology |
| Online Access: | https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002194&type=printable |
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| _version_ | 1850024144698081280 |
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| author | Colin J Torney Andrew Berdahl Iain D Couzin |
| author_facet | Colin J Torney Andrew Berdahl Iain D Couzin |
| author_sort | Colin J Torney |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Understanding cooperation in animal social groups remains a significant challenge for evolutionary theory. Observed behaviours that benefit others but incur some cost appear incompatible with classical notions of natural selection; however, these behaviours may be explained by concepts such as inclusive fitness, reciprocity, intra-specific mutualism or manipulation. In this work, we examine a seemingly altruistic behaviour, the active recruitment of conspecifics to a food resource through signalling. Here collective, cooperative behaviour may provide highly nonlinear benefits to individuals, since group functionality has the potential to be far greater than the sum of the component parts, for example by enabling the effective tracking of a dynamic resource. We show that due to this effect, signalling to others is an evolutionarily stable strategy under certain environmental conditions, even when there is a cost associated to this behaviour. While exploitation is possible, in the limiting case of a sparse, ephemeral but locally abundant nutrient source, a given environmental profile will support a fixed number of signalling individuals. Through a quantitative analysis, this effective carrying capacity for cooperation is related to the characteristic length and time scales of the resource field. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-ad923aa48ff446f699dcb2330b61a543 |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 1553-734X 1553-7358 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2011-09-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS Computational Biology |
| spelling | doaj-art-ad923aa48ff446f699dcb2330b61a5432025-08-20T03:01:11ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS Computational Biology1553-734X1553-73582011-09-0179e100219410.1371/journal.pcbi.1002194Signalling and the evolution of cooperative foraging in dynamic environments.Colin J TorneyAndrew BerdahlIain D CouzinUnderstanding cooperation in animal social groups remains a significant challenge for evolutionary theory. Observed behaviours that benefit others but incur some cost appear incompatible with classical notions of natural selection; however, these behaviours may be explained by concepts such as inclusive fitness, reciprocity, intra-specific mutualism or manipulation. In this work, we examine a seemingly altruistic behaviour, the active recruitment of conspecifics to a food resource through signalling. Here collective, cooperative behaviour may provide highly nonlinear benefits to individuals, since group functionality has the potential to be far greater than the sum of the component parts, for example by enabling the effective tracking of a dynamic resource. We show that due to this effect, signalling to others is an evolutionarily stable strategy under certain environmental conditions, even when there is a cost associated to this behaviour. While exploitation is possible, in the limiting case of a sparse, ephemeral but locally abundant nutrient source, a given environmental profile will support a fixed number of signalling individuals. Through a quantitative analysis, this effective carrying capacity for cooperation is related to the characteristic length and time scales of the resource field.https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002194&type=printable |
| spellingShingle | Colin J Torney Andrew Berdahl Iain D Couzin Signalling and the evolution of cooperative foraging in dynamic environments. PLoS Computational Biology |
| title | Signalling and the evolution of cooperative foraging in dynamic environments. |
| title_full | Signalling and the evolution of cooperative foraging in dynamic environments. |
| title_fullStr | Signalling and the evolution of cooperative foraging in dynamic environments. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Signalling and the evolution of cooperative foraging in dynamic environments. |
| title_short | Signalling and the evolution of cooperative foraging in dynamic environments. |
| title_sort | signalling and the evolution of cooperative foraging in dynamic environments |
| url | https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002194&type=printable |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT colinjtorney signallingandtheevolutionofcooperativeforagingindynamicenvironments AT andrewberdahl signallingandtheevolutionofcooperativeforagingindynamicenvironments AT iaindcouzin signallingandtheevolutionofcooperativeforagingindynamicenvironments |