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Flack, J. C., de Waal, F. B. M., & Krakauer, D. C. (2005). Social structure, robustness, and policing cost in a cognitively sophisticated species. Am Nat, 165(5), E126–139.
Abstract: Conflict management is one of the primary requirements for social complexity. Of the many forms of conflict management, one of the rarest and most interesting is third-party policing, or intervening impartially to control conflict. Third-party policing should be hard to evolve because policers personally pay a cost for intervening, while the benefits are diffused over the whole group. In this study we investigate the incidence and costs of policing in a primate society. We report quantitative evidence of non-kin policing in the nonhuman primate, the pigtailed macaque. We find that policing is effective at reducing the intensity of or terminating conflict when performed by the most powerful individuals. We define a measure, social power consensus, that predicts effective low-cost interventions by powerful individuals and ineffective, relatively costly interventions by low-power individuals. Finally, we develop a simple probabilistic model to explore whether the degree to which policing can effectively reduce the societal cost of conflict is dependent on variance in the distribution of power. Our data and simple model suggest that third-party policing effectiveness and cost are dependent on power structure and might emerge only in societies with high variance in power.
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Gardner, A., West, S. A. (2004). Cooperation and Punishment, Especially in Humans. Americ. Natur., 164(6), 753–764.
Abstract: Explaining altruistic cooperation is one of the greatest
challenges faced by sociologists, economists, and evolutionary biologists.
The problem is determining why an individual would carry
out a costly behavior that benefits another. Possible solutions to this
problem include kinship, repeated interactions, and policing. Another
solution that has recently received much attention is the threat
of punishment. However, punishing behavior is often costly for the
punisher, and so it is not immediately clear how costly punishment
could evolve. We use a direct (neighbor-modulated) fitness approach
to analyze when punishment is favored. This methodology reveals
that, contrary to previous suggestions, relatedness between interacting
individuals is not crucial to explaining cooperation through punishment.
In fact, increasing relatedness directly disfavors punishing
behavior. Instead, the crucial factor is a positive correlation between
the punishment strategy of an individual and the cooperation it
receives. This could arise in several ways, such as when facultative
adjustment of behavior leads individuals to cooperate more when
interacting with individuals who are more likely to punish. More
generally, our results provide a clear example of how the fundamental
factor driving the evolution of social traits is a correlation between
social partners and how this can arise for reasons other than genealogical
kinship.
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Cameron, E. Z., & du Toit, J. T. (2007). Winning by a neck: tall giraffes avoid competing with shorter browsers. Am Nat, 169(1), 130–135.
Abstract: With their vertically elongated body form, giraffes generally feed above the level of other browsers within the savanna browsing guild, despite having access to foliage at lower levels. They ingest more leaf mass per bite when foraging high in the tree, perhaps because smaller, more selective browsers deplete shoots at lower levels or because trees differentially allocate resources to promote shoot growth in the upper canopy. We erected exclosures around individual Acacia nigrescens trees in the greater Kruger ecosystem, South Africa. After a complete growing season, we found no differences in leaf biomass per shoot across height zones in excluded trees but significant differences in control trees. We conclude that giraffes preferentially browse at high levels in the canopy to avoid competition with smaller browsers. Our findings are analogous with those from studies of grazing guilds and demonstrate that resource partitioning can be driven by competition when smaller foragers displace larger foragers from shared resources. This provides the first experimental support for the classic evolutionary hypothesis that vertical elongation of the giraffe body is an outcome of competition within the browsing ungulate guild.
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Uehara, T., Yokomizo, H., & Iwasa, Y. (2005). Mate-choice copying as Bayesian decision making. Am Nat, 165(3), 403–410.
Abstract: Mate-choice copying by females has been reported in fishes (e.g., guppies) and lekking birds. Presumably, females assess males' quality using both information from direct observation of males and information acquired by observing other females' choices. Here, we study mathematically the conditions under which mate-choice copying is advantageous on the basis of Bayesian decision theory. A female may observe the mate choice of another female, called the model female, who has performed an optimal choice based on her own judgment. The conditions required for the focal female to choose the same mate as that chosen by the model female should depend on the male's appearance to her, the reliability of her own judgment of male quality, and the reliability of the model females. When three or more females are involved, the optimal mate choice critically depends on whether multiple model females make decisions independently or they themselves copy the choices of others. If two equally reliable females choose different males, the choice of the second female, made knowing the choice of the first, should have a stronger effect on the choice of the third (focal) female. This “last-choice precedence” should be tested experimentally.
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Dubois, F., Giraldeau, L. - A., Hamilton, I. M., Grant, J. W. A., & Lefebvre, L. (2004). Distraction sneakers decrease the expected level of aggression within groups: a game-theoretic model. Am Nat, 164(2), E32–45.
Abstract: Hawk-dove games have been extensively used to predict the conditions under which group-living animals should defend their resources against potential usurpers. Typically, game-theoretic models on aggression consider that resource defense may entail energetic and injury costs. However, intruders may also take advantage of owners who are busy fighting to sneak access to unguarded resources, imposing thereby an additional cost on the use of the escalated hawk strategy. In this article we modify the two-strategy hawk-dove game into a three-strategy hawk-dove-sneaker game that incorporates a distraction-sneaking tactic, allowing us to explore its consequences on the expected level of aggression within groups. Our model predicts a lower proportion of hawks and hence lower frequencies of aggressive interactions within groups than do previous two-strategy hawk-dove games. The extent to which distraction sneakers decrease the frequency of aggression within groups, however, depends on whether they search only for opportunities to join resources uncovered by other group members or for both unchallenged resources and opportunities to usurp.
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Dubois, F., & Giraldeau, L. - A. (2003). The forager's dilemma: food sharing and food defense as risk-sensitive foraging options. Am Nat, 162(6), 768–779.
Abstract: Although many variants of the hawk-dove game predict the frequency at which group foraging animals should compete aggressively, none of them can explain why a large number of group foraging animals share food clumps without any overt aggression. One reason for this shortcoming is that hawk-dove games typically consider only a single contest, while most group foraging situations involve opponents that interact repeatedly over discovered food clumps. The present iterated hawk-dove game predicts that in situations that are analogous to a prisoner's dilemma, animals should share the resources without aggression, provided that the number of simultaneously available food clumps is sufficiently large and the number of competitors is relatively small. However, given that the expected gain of an aggressive animal is more variable than the gain expected by nonaggressive individuals, the predicted effect of the number of food items in a clump-clump richness-depends on whether only the mean or both the mean and variability associated with payoffs are considered. More precisely, the deterministic game predicts that aggression should increase with clump richness, whereas the stochastic risk-sensitive game predicts that the frequency of encounters resulting in aggression should peak at intermediate clump richnesses or decrease with increasing clump richness if animals show sensitivity to the variance or coefficient of variation, respectively.
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Pruett-Jones, S. (1992). Independent Versus Nonindependent Mate Choice: Do Females Copy Each Other? Am Nat, 140(6), 1000–1009.
Abstract: There is increasing evidence from both observational and experimental studies that females may copy each other's mating decisions. Female copying can be defined as a type of nonindependent choice in which the probability that a female chooses a given male increases if other females have chosen that male and decreases if they have not. The important characteristic of copying behavior that separates it from other similar processes is that the change in the probability of choice is strictly because of the actions of other females and not the consequences of those actions (e.g., a male's behavior changing as a result of successful matings). A gametheory model suggests that the adaptive significance of female copying may depend primarily on the ratio of the costs to the benefits of active mate choice. Copying behavior, and more generally conspecific cueing, may be important in many behavioral processes beyond mate choice.
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Horrocks, J. A., & Hunte, W. (1983). Rank Relations in Vervet Sisters: A Critique of the Role of Reproductive Value. Am. Nat., 122, 417–421.
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Gosden, T. P., & Svensson, E. I. (2009). Density-Dependent Male Mating Harassment, Female Resistance, and Male Mimicry. Am Nat, 173(6), 709–721.
Abstract: Abstract:
Genetic variation in female resistance and tolerance to male mating harassment can affect the outcome of sexually antagonistic mating interactions. We investigated female mating rates and male mating harassment in natural populations of a damselfly (Ischnura elegans). This damselfly species has a heritable sex‐limited polymorphism in females, where one of the morphs is a male mimic (androchrome females). The three female morphs differ in mating rates, and these differences are stable across populations and years. However, the degree of premating resistance toward male mating attempts varied across generations and populations. Male mating harassment of the female morphs changed in a density‐dependent fashion, suggesting that male mate preferences are plastic and vary with the different morph densities. We quantified morph differences in male mating harassment and female fecundity, using path analysis and structural equation modeling. We found variation between the morphs in the fitness consequences of mating, with the fecundity of one of the nonmimetic morphs declining with increasing male mating harassment. However, androchrome females had lower overall fecundity, presumably reflecting a cost of male mimicry. Density‐dependent male mating harassment on the morphs and fecundity costs of male mimicry are thus likely to contribute to the maintenance of this female polymorphism.
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Detto, T., Jennions, M. D., & Backwell, P. R. Y. (2010). When and Why Do Territorial Coalitions Occur? Experimental Evidence from a Fiddler Crab. Am Nat, 175(5), E119–E125.
Abstract: Neighboring territory owners are often less aggressive toward each other than to strangers (“dear enemy” effect). There is, however, little evidence for territorial defense coalitions whereby a neighbor will temporarily leave his/her own territory, enter that of a neighbor, and cooperate in repelling a conspecific intruder. This is surprising, as theoreticians have long posited the existence of such coalitions and the circumstances under which they should evolve. Here we document territorial defense coalitions in the African fiddler crab Uca annulipes, which lives in large colonies wherein each male defends a burrow and its surrounding area against neighbors and “floaters” (burrowless males). Fights between a resident and a floater sometimes involve another male who has left his territory to fight the floater challenging his neighbor. Using simple experiments, we provide the first evidence of the rules determining when territorial coalitions form. Our results support recent models that suggest that these coalitions arise from by‐product mutualism.
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