The Evolution of Division of Labor

Goldsby, Heather J.; Knoester, David B.; Clune, Jeff; McKinley, Philip K.; Ofria, Charles

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-21314-4_2

“…For example, grouping can improve group vigilance [4][5][6][7], reduce the chance of being encountered by predators [5,8], dilute an individual's risk of being attacked [9][10][11][12][13][14], enable an active defense against predators [15], or reduce predator attack efficiency by confusing the predator [16][17][18][19][20]. Other possible benefits not involving predation include improved mating success [21], increased foraging efficiency [22], and the ability for the group to solve problems that would be impossible to solve individually [23], for example through the division of labor [24]. With all of these interdependent factors potentially affecting the evolution of grouping, it is difficult to study the independent effects of each benefit in biological systems, let alone explore how they unfold over evolutionary time scales.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the evolution of a trade-off between vigilance and foraging in group-living organisms

Olson

¹

,

Haley

²

,

Dyer

³

et al. 2015

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Even though grouping behaviour has been actively studied for over a century, the relative importance of the numerous proposed fitness benefits of grouping remain unclear. We use a digital model of evolving prey under simulated predation to directly explore the evolution of gregarious foraging behaviour according to one such benefit, the ‘many eyes’ hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, collective vigilance allows prey in large groups to detect predators more efficiently by making alarm signals or behavioural cues to each other, thereby allowing individuals within the group to spend more time foraging. Here, we find that collective vigilance is sufficient to select for gregarious foraging behaviour as long there is not a direct cost for grouping (e.g. competition for limited food resources), even when controlling for confounding factors such as the dilution effect. Furthermore, we explore the role of the genetic relatedness and reproductive strategy of the prey and find that highly related groups of prey with a semelparous reproductive strategy are the most likely to evolve gregarious foraging behaviour mediated by the benefit of vigilance. These findings, combined with earlier studies with evolving digital organisms, further sharpen our understanding of the factors favouring grouping behaviour.

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“…Some argue that the theoretic principles of group selection are well developed and crucial for understanding evolution in natural populations (Wilson and Wilson, 2007;Okasha, 2006). Indeed, many artificial life models seeking to explain the evolution of cooperation make either explicit or implicit reference to group-level selection (e.g., Scogings and Hawick 2008;Goldsby et al 2009;Wu and Banzhaf 2009). The group selection position, however, suffers from at least two serious problems.…”

Section: Group Selection In Theory and Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

How to measure group selection in real-world populations

Powers,

Heys,

Watson

2012

Preprint

0

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Multilevel selection and the evolution of cooperation are fundamental to the formation of higher-level organisation and the evolution of biocomplexity, but such notions are controversial and poorly understood in natural populations. The theoretic principles of group selection are well developed in idealised models where a population is neatly divided into multiple semi-isolated sub-populations. But since such models can be explained by individual selection given the localised frequency-dependent effects involved, some argue that the group selection concepts offered are, even in the idealised case, redundant and that in natural conditions where groups are not well-defined that a group selection framework is entirely inapplicable. This does not necessarily mean, however, that a natural population is not subject to some interesting localised frequency-dependent effects -but how could we formally quantify this under realistic conditions? Here we focus on the presence of a Simpson's Paradox where, although the local proportion of cooperators decreases at all locations, the global proportion of cooperators increases. We illustrate this principle in a simple individual-based model of bacterial biofilm growth and discuss various complicating factors in moving from theory to practice of measuring group selection.

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“…Some argue that the theoretic principles of group selection are well developed and crucial for understanding evolution in natural populations (Wilson and Wilson, 2007;Okasha, 2006). Indeed, many artificial life models seeking to explain the evolution of cooperation make either explicit or implicit reference to group-level selection (e.g., Scogings and Hawick 2008;Goldsby et al 2009;Wu and Banzhaf 2009). The group selection position, however, suffers from at least two serious problems.…”

Section: Group Selection In Theory and Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

How to measure group selection in real-world populations

2011

ECAL 2011: The 11th European Conference on Artificial Life

0

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Multilevel selection and the evolution of cooperation are fundamental to the formation of higher-level organisation and the evolution of biocomplexity, but such notions are controversial and poorly understood in natural populations. The theoretic principles of group selection are well developed in idealised models where a population is neatly divided into multiple semi-isolated sub-populations. But since such models can be explained by individual selection given the localised frequency-dependent effects involved, some argue that the group selection concepts offered are, even in the idealised case, redundant and that in natural conditions where groups are not well-defined that a group selection framework is entirely inapplicable. This does not necessarily mean, however, that a natural population is not subject to some interesting localised frequency-dependent effects -but how could we formally quantify this under realistic conditions? Here we focus on the presence of a Simpson's Paradox where, although the local proportion of cooperators decreases at all locations, the global proportion of cooperators increases. We illustrate this principle in a simple individual-based model of bacterial biofilm growth and discuss various complicating factors in moving from theory to practice of measuring group selection.

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The Evolution of Division of Labor

Cited by 23 publications

References 13 publications

Exploring the evolution of a trade-off between vigilance and foraging in group-living organisms

Exploring the evolution of a trade-off between vigilance and foraging in group-living organisms

How to measure group selection in real-world populations

How to measure group selection in real-world populations

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