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Franks, N. R., & Richardson, T. (2006). Teaching in tandem-running ants. Nature, 439(7073), 153.
Abstract: The ant Temnothorax albipennis uses a technique known as tandem running to lead another ant from the nest to food--with signals between the two ants controlling both the speed and course of the run. Here we analyse the results of this communication and show that tandem running is an example of teaching, to our knowledge the first in a non-human animal, that involves bidirectional feedback between teacher and pupil. This behaviour indicates that it could be the value of information, rather than the constraint of brain size, that has influenced the evolution of teaching.
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Dreber, A., Rand, D. G., Fudenberg, D., & Nowak, M. A. (2008). Winners don/'t punish. Nature, 452(7185), 348–351.
Abstract: A key aspect of human behaviour is cooperation1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. We tend to help others even if costs are involved. We are more likely to help when the costs are small and the benefits for the other person significant. Cooperation leads to a tension between what is best for the individual and what is best for the group. A group does better if everyone cooperates, but each individual is tempted to defect. Recently there has been much interest in exploring the effect of costly punishment on human cooperation8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. Costly punishment means paying a cost for another individual to incur a cost. It has been suggested that costly punishment promotes cooperation even in non-repeated games and without any possibility of reputation effects10. But most of our interactions are repeated and reputation is always at stake. Thus, if costly punishment is important in promoting cooperation, it must do so in a repeated setting. We have performed experiments in which, in each round of a repeated game, people choose between cooperation, defection and costly punishment. In control experiments, people could only cooperate or defect. Here we show that the option of costly punishment increases the amount of cooperation but not the average payoff of the group. Furthermore, there is a strong negative correlation between total payoff and use of costly punishment. Those people who gain the highest total payoff tend not to use costly punishment: winners don't punish. This suggests that costly punishment behaviour is maladaptive in cooperation games and might have evolved for other reasons.
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Milinski, M., & Rockenbach, B. (2008). Human behaviour: Punisher pays. Nature, 452(7185), 297–298.
Abstract: The tendency of humans to punish perceived free-loaders, even at a cost to themselves, is an evolutionary puzzle: punishers perish, and those who benefit the most are those who have never punished at all.
Humans are champions of cooperation. Reciprocity – the idea that, if I help you this time, you'll help me next time1 – is a secret of our success.
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Berger, J. (1983). Induced abortion and social factors in wild horses. Nature, 303(5912), 59–61.
Abstract: Much evidence now suggests that the postnatal killing of young in primates and carnivores, and induced abortions in some rodents, are evolved traits exerting strong selective pressures on adult male and female behaviour. Among ungulates it is perplexing that either no species have developed convergent tactics or that these behaviours are not reported, especially as ungulates have social systems similar to those of members of the above groups. Only in captive horses (Equus caballus) has infant killing been reported. It has been estimated that 40,000 wild horses live in remote areas of the Great Basin Desert of North America (US Department of Interior (Bureau of Land Management), unpublished report), where they occur in harems (females and young) defended by males. Here I present evidence that, rather than killing infants directly, invading males induce abortions in females unprotected by their resident stallions and these females are then inseminated by the new males.
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Wolf, M., van Doorn, G. S., Leimar, O., & Weissing, F. J. (2007). Wolf et al. reply. Nature, 450(7167), E5–E6.
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McElreath, R., Luttbeg, B., Fogarty, S. P., Brodin, T., & Sih, A. (2007). Evolution of animal personalities. Nature, 450(7167), E5.
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Wolf, M., van Doorn, G. S., Leimar, O., & Weissing, F. J. (2007). Life-history trade-offs favour the evolution of animal personalities. Nature, 447(7144), 581–584.
Abstract: In recent years evidence has been accumulating that personalities are not only found in humans but also in a wide range of other animal species. Individuals differ consistently in their behavioural tendencies and the behaviour in one context is correlated with the behaviour in multiple other contexts. From an adaptive perspective, the evolution of animal personalities is still a mystery, because a more flexible structure of behaviour should provide a selective advantage. Accordingly, many researchers view personalities as resulting from constraints imposed by the architecture of behaviour (but see ref. 12). In contrast, we show here that animal personalities can be given an adaptive explanation. Our argument is based on the insight that the trade-off between current and future reproduction often results in polymorphic populations in which some individuals put more emphasis on future fitness returns than others. Life-history theory predicts that such differences in fitness expectations should result in systematic differences in risk-taking behaviour. Individuals with high future expectations (who have much to lose) should be more risk-averse than individuals with low expectations. This applies to all kinds of risky situations, so individuals should consistently differ in their behaviour. By means of an evolutionary model we demonstrate that this basic principle results in the evolution of animal personalities. It simultaneously explains the coexistence of behavioural types, the consistency of behaviour through time and the structure of behavioural correlations across contexts. Moreover, it explains the common finding that explorative behaviour and risk-related traits like boldness and aggressiveness are common characteristics of animal personalities.
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Bell, A. M. (2007). Evolutionary biology: animal personalities (Vol. 447).
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Novacek, M. J. (1992). Mammalian phylogeny: shaking the tree. Nature, 356(6365), 121–125.
Abstract: Recent palaeontological discoveries and the correspondence between molecular and morphological results provide fresh insight on the deep structure of mammalian phylogeny. This new wave of research, however, has yet to resolve some important issues.
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Sugiyama Y. (1994). Tool use by wild chimpanzees. Nature, 376, 327.
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