A number of scholars have found that concepts such as mutation, selection, and random drift, which emerged from the theory of biological evolution, may also explain evolutionary phenomena in other ...disciplines as well. Drawing on these concepts, Professors Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman classify and systematize the various modes of transmitting "culture" and explore their consequences for cultural evolution. In the process, they develop a mathematical theory of the non-genetic transmission of cultural traits that provides a framework for future investigations in quantitative social and anthropological science.The authors use quantitative models that incorporate the various modes of transmission (for example, parent-child, peer-peer, and teacher-student), and evaluate data from sociology, archaeology, and epidemiology in terms of the models. They show that the various modes of transmission in conjunction with cultural and natural selection produce various rates of cultural evolution and various degrees of diversity within and between groups. The same framework can be used for explaining phenomena as apparently unrelated as linguistics, epidemics, social values and customs, and diffusion of innovations. The authors conclude that cultural transmission is an essential factor in the study of cultural change.
Social Evolution in Ants Bourke, Andrew F. G; Franks, Nigel R
2019, 1995, 2019-12-31, Letnik:
16
eBook
Biologists since Darwin have been intrigued and confounded by the complex issues involved in the evolution and ecology of the social behavior of insects. The self-sacrifice of sterile workers in ant ...colonies has been particularly difficult for evolutionary biologists to explain. In this important new book, Andrew Bourke and Nigel Franks not only present a detailed overview of the current state of scientific knowledge about social evolution in ants, but also show how studies on ants have contributed to an understanding of many fundamental topics in behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology. One of the substantial contributions of Social Evolution in Ants is its clear explanation of kin selection theory and sex ratio theory and their applications to social evolution in insects. Working to dispel lingering skepticism about the validity of kin selection and, more broadly, of "selfish gene" theory, Bourke and Franks show how these ideas underpin the evolution of both cooperation and conflict within ant societies. In addition, using simple algebra, they provide detailed explanations of key mathematical models. Finally, the authors discuss two relatively little-known topics in ant social biology: life history strategy and mating systems. This comprehensive, up-to-date, and well-referenced work will appeal to all researchers in social insect biology and to scholars and students in the fields of entomology, behavioral ecology, and evolution.
The self-domestication hypothesis suggests that, like mammalian domesticates, humans have gone through a process of selection against aggression - a process that in the case of humans was ...self-induced. Here, we extend previous proposals and suggest that what underlies human social evolution is selection for socially mediated emotional control and plasticity. In the first part of the paper we highlight general features of human social evolution, which, we argue, is more similar to that of other social mammals than to that of mammalian domesticates and is therefore incompatible with the notion of human self-domestication. In the second part, we discuss the unique aspects of human evolution and propose that emotional control and social motivation in humans evolved during two major, partially overlapping stages. The first stage, which followed the emergence of mimetic communication, the beginnings of musical engagement, and mimesis-related cognition, required socially mediated emotional plasticity and was accompanied by new social emotions. The second stage followed the emergence of language, when individuals began to instruct the imagination of their interlocutors, and to rely even more extensively on emotional plasticity and culturally learned emotional control. This account further illustrates the significant differences between humans and domesticates, thus challenging the notion of human self-domestication.
The ambrosia beetle-fungus farming symbiosis is more heterogeneous than previously thought. There is not one but many ambrosia symbioses. Beetle-fungus specificity is clade dependent and ranges from ...strict to promiscuous. Each new origin has evolved a new mycangium. The most common relationship with host trees is colonization of freshly dead tissues, but there are also parasites of living trees, vectors of pathogenic fungi, and beetles living in rotten trees with a wood-decay symbiont. Most of these strategies are driven by fungal metabolism whereas beetle ecology is evolutionarily more flexible. The ambrosia lifestyle facilitated a radiation of social strategies, from fungus thieves to eusocial species to communities assembled by attraction to fungal scent. Although over 95% of the symbiotic pairs are economically harmless, there are also three types of pest damage: tree pathogen inoculation, mass accumulation on susceptible hosts, and structural damage. Beetles able to colonize live tree tissues are most likely to become invasive pests.
This book explores the ways in which contemporary evolutionary thinking might inform the study of the peculiarly human phenomenon of symbolic culture, including language, ritual, religion, religion ...and art.
Microbes are typically surrounded by different strains and species with whom they compete for scarce nutrients and limited space. Given such challenging living conditions, microbes have evolved many ...phenotypes with which they can outcompete and displace their neighbours: secretions to harvest resources, loss of costly genes whose products can be obtained from others, stabbing and poisoning neighbouring cells, or colonising spaces while preventing others from doing so. These competitive phenotypes appear to be common, although evidence suggests that, over time, competition dies down locally, often leading to stable coexistence of genetically distinct lineages. Nevertheless, the selective forces acting on competition and the resulting evolutionary fates of the different players depend on ecological conditions in a way that is not yet well understood. Here, we highlight open questions and theoretical predictions of the long-term dynamics of competition that remain to be tested. Establishing a clearer understanding of microbial competition will allow us to better predict the behaviour of microbes, and to control and manipulate microbial communities for industrial, environmental, and medical purposes.
Many species of microbes cooperate by producing public goods from which they collectively benefit. However, these populations are under the risk of being taken over by cheating mutants that do not ...contribute to the pool of public goods. Here we present theoretical findings that address how the social evolution of microbes can be manipulated by external perturbations to inhibit or promote the fixation of cheaters. To control social evolution, we determine the effects of fluid-dynamical properties such as flow rate or domain geometry. We also study the social evolutionary consequences of introducing beneficial or harmful chemicals at steady state and in a time-dependent fashion. We show that by modulating the flow rate and by applying pulsed chemical signals, we can modulate the spatial structure and dynamics of the population in a way that can select for more or less cooperative microbial populations.
InThe Hadza, Frank Marlowe provides a quantitative ethnography of one of the last remaining societies of hunter-gatherers in the world. The Hadza, who inhabit an area of East Africa near the ...Serengeti and Olduvai Gorge, have long drawn the attention of anthropologists and archaeologists for maintaining a foraging lifestyle in a region that is key to understanding human origins. Marlowe ably applies his years of research with the Hadza to cover the traditional topics in ethnography-subsistence, material culture, religion, and social structure. But the book's unique contribution is to introduce readers to the more contemporary field of behavioral ecology, which attempts to understand human behavior from an evolutionary perspective. To that end,The Hadzaalso articulates the necessary background for readers whose exposure to human evolutionary theory is minimal.
The hypothesis that eusociality originated once in Vespidae has shaped interpretation of social evolution for decades and has driven the supposition that preimaginal morphophysiological differences ...between castes were absent at the outset of eusociality. Many researchers also consider casteless nest-sharing an antecedent to eusociality. Together, these ideas endorse a stepwise progression of social evolution in wasps (solitary → casteless nest-sharing → eusociality with rudimentary behavioral castes → eusociality with preimaginal caste-biasing (PCB) → morphologically differentiated castes). Here, we infer the phylogeny of Vespidae using sequence data generated via anchored hybrid enrichment from 378 loci across 136 vespid species and perform ancestral state reconstructions to test whether rudimentary and monomorphic castes characterized the initial stages of eusocial evolution. Our results reject the single origin of eusociality hypothesis, contest the supposition that eusociality emerged from a casteless nest-sharing ancestor, and suggest that eusociality in Polistinae + Vespinae began with castes having morphological differences. An abrupt appearance of castes with ontogenetically established morphophysiological differences conflicts with the current conception of stepwise social evolution and suggests that the climb up the ladder of sociality does not occur through sequential mutation. Phenotypic plasticity and standing genetic variation could explain how cooperative brood care evolved in concert with nest-sharing and how morphologically dissimilar castes arose without a rudimentary intermediate. Furthermore, PCB at the outset of eusociality implicates a subsocial route to eusociality in Polistinae + Vespinae, emphasizing the role of mother-daughter interactions and subfertility (i.e. the cost component of kin selection) in the origin of workers.
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