Journal
ECOLOGY LETTERS
Volume 20, Issue 6, Pages 708-720Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/ele.12774
Keywords
bet hedging; ecological constraint; environmental uncertainty; fluctuating selection; group living; group size; insider-outsider conflict; social evolution; sociality
Categories
Funding
- Academia Sinica (Career Development Award and Investigator Award)
- Minister of Science and Technology of Taiwan [100-2621-B-001-004-MY3, 104-2311-B-001-028-MY3]
- National Science Foundation [IBN-0133795, IOS-0918944, IOS-1455881, IOS-1121435, IOS-1257530, IOS-1439985]
- Division Of Integrative Organismal Systems
- Direct For Biological Sciences [1257530, 1455881] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Ecology is a fundamental driving force for the evolutionary transition from solitary living to breeding cooperatively in groups. However, the fact that both benign and harsh, as well as stable and fluctuating, environments can favour the evolution of cooperative breeding behaviour constitutes a paradox of environmental quality and sociality. Here, we propose a new model - the dual benefits framework - for resolving this paradox. Our framework distinguishes between two categories of grouping benefits - resource defence benefits that derive from group-defended critical resources and collective action benefits that result from social cooperation among group members - and uses insider-outsider conflict theory to simultaneously consider the interests of current group members (insiders) and potential joiners (outsiders) in determining optimal group size. We argue that the different grouping benefits realised from resource defence and collective action profoundly affect insider-outsider conflict resolution, resulting in predictable differences in the per capita productivity, stable group size, kin structure and stability of the social group. We also suggest that different types of environmental variation (spatial vs. temporal) select for societies that form because of the different grouping benefits, thus helping to resolve the paradox of why cooperative breeding evolves in such different types of environments.
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