Cooperative work in social birds: how is a tragedy of the commons averted?

群居鸟类的合作：如何避免公地悲剧？

基本信息

批准号：
NE/G018588/1
负责人：
Ben Hatchwell
金额：
$ 52.33万
依托单位：
University of Sheffield
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2010
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2010 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FG018588%2F1
关键词：
Cooperative work social birds how

项目摘要

The evolution of cooperative behaviour is a fundamental and persistent problem in evolutionary biology. Natural selection is expected to select for selfish behaviour because individuals should seek to maximise their own reproductive success to leave more offspring in the next generation. Therefore, when individuals cooperate in joint tasks, there is inevitably conflict over how hard each should work: every individual would like others to work harder and to do less themselves. Hence, in social groups, cooperative behaviour will be vulnerable to exploitation by selfish individuals, or freeloaders. Public goods games capture the essence of the paradox: groups composed of cooperating individuals should out-compete groups of selfish individuals, but selfish individuals do better than cooperative ones within groups. This social dilemma is known as the tragedy of the commons and it is found in virtually all biological systems, including human societies, where over-exploitation of common resources such as fish stocks or failure to curb carbon emissions are obvious examples. An extensive theoretical literature shows that selfishness replaces cooperation under most conditions, but that cooperative behaviour may be maintained under certain circumstances. These include: 1. When non-cooperating individuals are punished or coerced into cooperation through a system of enforcement. 2. When individuals must achieve a good reputation through cooperation in order to maximise their own fitness. 3. When cooperation benefits relatives so that cooperators gain fitness benefits through kin selection. The aim of this study is to use the unique communal breeding system of the sociable weaver of southern Africa to test these alternative hypotheses for resolution of a tragedy of the commons. The sociable weaver builds massive communal nests in which a single nest mass provides roosting and breeding sites for up to several hundred birds. The communal nest has two distinct but integrated components: a thatched dome that has a supportive and thermoregulatory function; and individual nest chambers embedded beneath the thatch in which pairs or small groups of individuals roost and breed. A key feature is that the dome is not a self-organising structure because it is not an emergent property of investment in individual nest chambers. Thus, colony members must invest time and effort in building and maintaining the communal dome as well as their own nest chamber. How do sociable weavers resolve the conflict among individuals over cooperative investment and avoid a tragedy of the commons that would result in social collapse? This study will first determine the individual contributions made by colony members to public goods, and determine whether this effort is costly. The function of the public goods will also be quantified by relating the thermoregulatory properties of the thatch to its size and the position of nest chambers. Finally, and most importantly, this study will use field observations and experiments to test whether a tragedy of the commons is averted by cooperating with kin, through enforcement of cooperative work by other colony members, or because cooperative work is a signal to other colony members of an individual's quality with associated benefits to an individual's own reproductive success. Previous studies of sociable weavers show that the programme of research is tractable and the project's objectives achievable. The study will be conducted on an established study population of sociable weavers at Kimberley, South Africa, in collaboration with the Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology at the University of Cape Town. Because of the ubiquity of the tragedy of the commons in biological systems, the findings of this study will have broad relevance across a wide range of disciplines.

合作行为的演变是进化生物学中的一个基本和持久的问题。预计自然选择将选择自私的行为，因为个人应该寻求最大化自己的生殖成功，以在下一代中留下更多的后代。因此，当个人在联合任务中合作时，每个人都应该如何努力工作就不可避免地发生冲突：每个人都希望他人更努力地工作和做得更少。因此，在社会群体中，合作行为将容易受到自私的人或自由职业者的剥削。公共物品游戏捕捉了悖论的本质：由合作个人组成的群体应该超越自私的个体，但是自私的人比群体中的合作者更好。这种社会困境被称为公地的悲剧，它在包括人类社会在内的几乎所有生物系统中都可以找到，那里的普通资源（例如鱼类种群）或未能遏制碳排放的过度探索都是明显的例子。广泛的理论文献表明，在大多数情况下，自私取代了合作，但是在某些情况下可以维持合作行为。其中包括：1。当不合作的个体通过执法制度惩罚或强迫合作时。 2.当个人必须通过合作获得良好的声誉，以最大程度地提高自己的健身。 3。当合作受益时，合作者通过选择亲戚获得健身益处。这项研究的目的是利用南部非洲社交织布工的独特社区繁殖系统来检验这些替代假设，以解决综合派的悲剧。社交的编织者建立了巨大的公共巢穴，其中一个巢质量为多达数百只鸟类提供了栖息和繁殖地点。公共巢有两个不同但整合的成分：一个具有支持性和温度调节功能的茅草圆顶；和单个的巢室嵌入在茅草下方，其中成对或一小部分个体栖息和繁殖。一个关键特征是，圆顶不是一个自组织的结构，因为它不是单个巢室投资的新兴财产。因此，殖民地成员必须花费时间和精力来建造和维护公共圆顶以及自己的巢穴。社交织布工如何解决个人之间在合作投资方面的冲突，并避免导致社会崩溃的公地的悲剧？这项研究将首先确定殖民地成员对公共物品的个人贡献，并确定这项工作是否昂贵。公共物品的功能也将通过将茅草的热调节性能与巢穴的位置联系起来来量化。最后，最重要的是，这项研究将使用现场观察和实验来测试通过与亲戚合作，通过其他殖民地成员的合作工作来避免Commons的悲剧，或者因为合作工作是向个人质量的其他相关效果的信号。对社交织布工的先前研究表明，研究计划是可解决的，并且该项目的目标是可以实现的。该研究将与南非金伯利的既定研究人群进行，并与开普敦大学的珀西·菲茨帕特里克（Percy Fitzpatrick）非洲鸟类学研究所合作。由于下议院在生物系统中的悲剧无处不在，这项研究的发现将在广泛的学科中具有广泛的相关性。

项目成果

期刊论文数量（7）

专著数量（0）

科研奖励数量（0）

会议论文数量（0）

专利数量（0）

Disruptive viability selection on a black plumage trait associated with dominance.

DOI：
10.1111/jeb.12717
发表时间：
2015-11
期刊：
Journal of evolutionary biology
影响因子：
2.1
作者：
Acker P;Grégoire A;Rat M;Spottiswoode CN;van Dijk RE;Paquet M;Kaden JC;Pradel R;Hatchwell BJ;Covas R;Doutrelant C
通讯作者：
Doutrelant C

Antagonistic effect of helpers on breeding male and female survival in a cooperatively breeding bird.