V. Life's Corporeal Evolution Develops, Encodes and Organizes Itself: An Earthtwinian Genesis Synthesis

5. Cooperative Member/Group Societies

Su, Qi, et al. Evolutionary Dynamics with Stochastic Game Transitions. arXiv:1905.10269. Harvard University mathematicians including Martin Nowak explain why creaturely groupings seem to have an inherent drive and incentive toward beneficial cooperative behaviors versus negative selfishness. See also Su, Qi, et al Spatial Reciprocity in the Evolution of Cooperation by Qi Su, et al in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. (Vol.286/Iss.1900, 2019) for another analysis that reaches a similar conclusion.

The environment has a strong influence on a population's evolutionary dynamics. Driven by both intrinsic and external factors, the environment is subject to continuous change in nature. To model an ever-changing environment, we develop a framework of evolutionary dynamics with stochastic game transitions, where individuals' behaviors together with the games they play in one time step decide the games to be played next time step. We then study the evolution of cooperation in structured populations and find a simple rule: natural selection can favor cooperation over defection. We show that even if each individual game opposes cooperation, allowing for a transition between them can result in a favorable outcome for cooperation. Our work suggests that interdependence between the environment and the individuals' behaviors may explain the large-scale cooperation in realistic systems even when it is expensive relative to its benefit. (Abstract excerpt)

Sueur, Cedric, et al. Mechanisms of Network Evolution: A Focus on Socioecological Factors. Primates. 60/3, 2019. This is a lead article in an issue on Social Networks Analyses in Primates: A Multilevel Perspective by University of Strasbourg, Kyoto University, Sun Yat-sen University and University of Agder, Norway system primatologists. They report that simian groupings, as they formed viable niches, can be found to spontaneously exhibit similar interconnective linkages as most everywhere else. See also in this issue Social Style and Resilience of Macaques Networks by Ivan Puga-Gonzalez, et al and Using Multiplex Networks to Capture the Multidimensional nature of Social Structure by Sandra Smith-Aguilar.

Since group-living animals are embedded in a network of social interactions, socioecological factors may not only affect individual behaviors but also group-level social interactions, i.e., the network structure. These co-variations between socioecological factors, individual behavior, and group-level structure are important to study since they may strongly influence animal health outcomes and reproductive success. This paper reviews how causal factors (food distribution, predation, and infectious agent risk), via intermediary mechanisms (stress, information sharing, and mating system), may affect individual behavior and social network topology. We conclude that studies focusing on how well networks resist changing conditions might provide a better understanding of underlying individual behavior, a process we have called network evolution. Evolutionary processes may favor a group phenotypic composition, thus a network topology, aka “collective social niche construction”. (Abstract excerpts)

Sumpter, D. J. T.. The Principles of Collective Animal Behavior. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. 361/5, 2006. A post-doctoral zoologist at Oxford University provides an exemplary, well-written paper on how the new sciences of complex dynamic systems are revealing pervasive tendencies for animal groupings to take on cooperative, salutary structures. From ant trails to flocks, schools, and human crowds, the same principles and processes which marry individual and society can now be quantified and understood.

The central tenet of self-organization is that simple repeated interactions between individuals can produce complex adaptive patterns as the level of the group. (5) I argue that the key to understanding collective behavior lies in identifying the principles of the behavioural algorithms followed by individual animals and of how information flows between the animals. These principles, such as positive feedback, response thresholds and individual integrity, are repeatedly observed in very different animal societies. (5) Ultimately, this research could inform not only our understanding of animal societies, but also the principles by which we organize our own society. (5)

Sumpter, David. Collective Animal Behavior. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010. Over the past years, the realization that social creatures prevail by way of common modes of group reciprocities has reached the point that an Uppsala University mathematician can provide a cogent theoretical review. Researchers in this field are seen to engage two aspects – detailed quantifications of bird flock or fish pod dynamics, for example, or since in every case the same topologies recur, to discern general, phenomenal patterns and laws. I n line with biological norms, two approaches are thus followed – a “mechanistic” view of just “how” animals interact, or a “functional” approach as to “why” they do so.

Throughout this book, I emphasize how the same mechanisms arise again and again in many different systems. Mathematical models formalize these logical connections between systems. For some scientists this gives these models and the principles that underlie them an equal, if not greater, importance than natural selection. (11)

Sumpter, David, et al. Using Activity and Sociability to Characterize Collective Motion. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Vol.373/Iss.1746, 2018. Uppsala University and Stockholm University systems zoologists including James Herbert-Read describe the latest methods for better quantifications of life’s universal propensity to form viable member/commune groupings from amoebas and prokaryotes to our ecovillages. In this Collective Movement in Ecology issue, such integral assemblies are seen to attain a relative personality, emergent sensitivity, collective intelligence, and social learning as they survive and evolve.

A wide range of measurements can be made on the collective motion of groups, and the movement of individuals within them. These include group size, polarization, speed, turning speed, speed or directional correlations, and distances to near neighbours, which help capture biologically meaningful aspects of an animal's behaviour and contribute to its survival chances. Here, we use a factor analysis to identify two main axes of collective motion in guppies: (i) sociability, which corresponds to attraction (and to a lesser degree alignment) to neighbours, and (ii) activity, which combines alignment with directed movement. We suggest that the activity and sociability axes provide a useful framework for measuring the behaviour of animals in groups, allowing the comparison of individual and collective behaviours within and between species. (Abstract excerpt)

Taborsky, Michael, et al, eds. Division of labour as key driver of social evolution. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. March, 2025. This an editorial introduction by MT, Jennifer Fewell, Robert Gilles and Barbara Taborsky for a special title issue as the quote notes. Their credits are Behavioural Ecology, University of Bern, Arizona State University and MPI Animal Behavior. Among the eighteen entries are Cultural evolution, social ratcheting and the evolution of human division of labour by Lucio Vinicius, et al, Specialism and generalism in social animals by Koichi Ito and Andrew Higginson, Changes of division of labour along the eusociality spectrum in termites by J. Korb and Division of labour during honeybee colony defence by Daniela Ramirez-Moreno, et al.

Division of labour is a key driver of the economic success of human societies and of social evolution in general. Importantly, division of labour is not confined to human societies. It is present in social organisms ranging from bacteria to vertebrates, and accounts for the impressive ecological success of social insects such as ants and termites. There are intriguing parallels to interspecific mutualisms, which are characterised by the exchange of different services and commodities among unequal partners. This special issue provides a comprehensive view on how task specialisation and division of labour come about, how they are organized and what the biological roots are of this human ‘turbo enhancer’. Finally, its relevance for our modern world is critically evaluated. (Summary)

Tokita, Christopher and Corina Tarnita. Social Influence and Interaction Bias can Drive Emergent Behavioural Specialization and Modular Social Networks Across Systems. Journal of the Royal Society Interface. January, 2020. Princeton University evolutionary ecologists identify how complex adaptive system features such as diverse group modules, and appropriation of tasks are present and evident for many animal species. See also Fitness Benefits and Emergent Division of Labour at the Onset of Group Living by Y. Ulrich, et al (C. Tarnita) in Nature (560/635, 2018).

In social systems ranging from ant colonies to human society, consistent differences in behavior are common. Individuals can specialize in tasks they perform (division of labour DOL), their political poles, or various personalities they exhibit. Behavioural specialization often co-occurs with modular and assortative social networks as entities tend to associate with similar others. We then wonder whether the same mechanism could drive co-emergent social network structures. Here we extend a model of self-organized DOL to account for influence and interaction bias among various social dynamics. Our findings suggest that DOL and political polarization—two social phenomena not typically considered together—may actually share a common core. (Abstract excerpt)

Torney, Colin, et al. Context-dependent Interaction Leads to Emergent Search Behavior in Social Aggregates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 106/22055, 2009. A contribution to the growing appreciation that animal societies from microbes to a metropolis can be in fact modeled as self-organizing complex adaptive systems.

Instead, our method is based on the collective behavior of autonomous individuals following simple social interaction rules which are modified according to the local conditions they are experiencing. Through these context-dependent interactions, the group is able to locate the source of a chemical signal and in doing so displays an awareness of the environment not present at the individual level. This behavior illustrates an alternative pathway to the evolution of higher cognitive capacity via the emergent, group-level intelligence that can result from local interactions. (22055)

Toth, Amy and Gene Robinson. Evo-Devo and the Evolution of Social Behavior. Trends in Genetics. 23/7, 2007. University of Illinois biologists look into how a somatic developmental program can inform the study of communal organisms. They propose an extension of a highly conserved genetic homeobox ‘toolkit’ and consequent nested modularity, which repeats and reiterates itself, as a source of a perceived ‘division of labor’ in such colonies as social insects.

Traulsen, Arne and Martin Nowak. Evolution of Cooperation by Multilevel Selection. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 103/10952, 2006. A sophisticated model to quantify how cooperative processes are intrinsic to evolutionary advances.

In our opinion, group selection is an important organizing principle that permeates evolutionary processes from the emergence of the first cells to eusociality and the economics of nations. (10952)

Trumble, Benjamin, et al. Evolving the Neuroendocrine Physiology of Human and Primate Cooperation and Collective Action. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. 370/Issue 1683, 2015. In this collection on social cohesion, UC Santa Barbara anthropologists contribute to appreciations of the oppositional yet complementary effects of testosterone and oxytocin. As the Abstract details, a reciprocity of competitive entity and viable group will succeed only if their dynamic balance is achieved. Oxytocin is credited for mother-infant bonds, male parental investment, pair-bonds, friendships, and intergroup interactions, while testosterone is implicated in mating, parental, dyadic, and societal strife. A growing recognition of the importance of these hormones for separation and/or relations quite signifies gender roles, search Autism for another array of papers.

While many hormones play vital roles in facilitating or reinforcing cooperative behaviour, the neurohormones underlying competitive and cooperative behaviours are largely conserved across all mammals. This raises the question of how endocrine mechanisms have been shaped by selection to produce different levels of cooperation in different species. Multiple components of endocrine physiology—from baseline hormone concentrations, to binding proteins, to the receptor sensitivity and specificity—can evolve independently and be impacted by current socio-ecological conditions or individual status, thus potentially generating a wide range of variation within and between species. Here, we highlight several neurohormones and variation in hormone receptor genes associated with cooperation, focusing on the role of oxytocin and testosterone in contexts ranging from parenting and pair-bonding to reciprocity and territorial defence. While the studies reviewed herein describe the current state of the literature with regard to hormonal modulators of cooperation and collective action, there is still a paucity of research on hormonal mechanisms that help facilitate large-scale collective action. (Abstract)

Twomey, Colin, et al. Searching for Structure in Collective Systems. Theory in Biosciences. March, 2020. . University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University and Humboldt University social biologists advance the study of ubiquitous creaturely assemblies by way of deep network principles. In regard, a middle scale mutuality between semi-autonomous members and overall clusters is found to best provide the viability that groupings achieve and require.

Collective systems such as fish schools, bird flocks, and neural networks are comprised of many mutually-influencing individuals, often without leaders, hierarchies, or persistent relationships. The remarkably organized group-level behaviors readily observable in these systems contrast with the ad hoc, often vicarious, complex interactions among their constituents. While these individual dynamics factor into group-level coordination, they do not reflect its macroscopic properties. Rather, the source of group cohesion may be better described at some intermediate, mesoscopic scale. We introduce a novel method from information-theoretic principles to find a compressed description of a system based on the actions and mutual dependencies of its constituents, which reveals the natural structure of the collective. (Abstract excerpt)

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