The ecology and evolution of human‐wildlife cooperation

Abstract

1. Human-wildlife cooperation is a type of mutualism in which a human and a wild, free-living animal actively coordinate their behaviour to achieve a common beneficial outcome. While other cooperative human-animal interactions involving captive coercion or artificial selection (including domestication) have received extensive

When wax wanes: competitors for beeswax stabilize rather than jeopardize the honeyguide–human mutualism

“…Exploiters or cheating species are common [10] and can remain closely associated with mutualisms over long spans of evolutionary time [40,41]. Given that the ecological guild of heterospecific competitors at our study site in the Niassa Special Reserve is probably not too dissimilar to those under which the honeyguide–human mutualism first evolved [19], it is plausible that similar competition has existed over much or all of its likely ancient evolutionary history [21], and so influenced its long-term maintenance. Our finding align with recent work showing that in the cleaner–client interaction (a service-resource mutualism), the presence of third-party species directly influences the consistency (and thus stability) of the mutualism.…”

“…The birds benefit from eating the beeswax left behind after the humans harvest the honey (typically using an axe to access the nest and smoke to subdue the bees) [14,20], and the humans benefit from information about where hidden bees' nests are located, and so from the calorific richness of honey and bee eggs, larvae and pupae (hereafter 'bee larvae') [16,19]. In common with other cases of human-wildlife cooperation [21], each partner both provides and receives a service (guiding to the bees' nest by the greater honeyguide, harvest of bee products by the human) and a resource (wax for the bird, honey for the human).…”

Safeguarding human–wildlife cooperation

“…This definition specifies cooperative behavior with a wild animal, and we therefore exclude other human–wildlife mutualisms in which benefits are received indirectly through a regulating ecosystem service (e.g., scavenging of carrion and waste, controlling pests), and where the animal is coerced or from a domesticated lineage (see Dounias, 2018). All examples currently known to science involve cooperative foraging (Box 1), but as‐yet undescribed forms could confer different types of benefits (Cram et al, in press).…”

Do honey badgers and greater honeyguide birds cooperate to access bees' nests? Ecological evidence and honey‐hunter accounts

“…Its conservation would require strategies to protect the environment that supports it, both species' willingness to participate and, if it is transmitted culturally, the necessary compatible interspecies knowledge (van der Wal, Spottiswoode, et al., 2022). Finally, badger‐honeyguide cooperation would provide a rare example of ‘interspecies cooperation’ that requires coordinated action from both parties towards a shared goal (Cram et al., 2022). Clarifying its ecology and evolution would offer opportunities for comparative studies with similar examples of signal‐coordinated interspecies cooperation (Bayley & Rose, 2020; Caves et al., 2018; Cram et al., 2022; Spottiswoode et al., 2016; Vail et al., 2013; Worsley & O'Hara, 2019).…”

“…Finally, badger‐honeyguide cooperation would provide a rare example of ‘interspecies cooperation’ that requires coordinated action from both parties towards a shared goal (Cram et al., 2022). Clarifying its ecology and evolution would offer opportunities for comparative studies with similar examples of signal‐coordinated interspecies cooperation (Bayley & Rose, 2020; Caves et al., 2018; Cram et al., 2022; Spottiswoode et al., 2016; Vail et al., 2013; Worsley & O'Hara, 2019).…”