Edward Grey Institute, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK.
Biol Lett. 2012 Aug 23;8(4):544-6. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2012.0183. Epub 2012 Apr 25.
Familiarity plays an important role in the evolution of sociality and cooperation. Familiar individuals may gain a reputation for participating in, or defecting from, cooperative tasks. Previous research suggests that long-term familiarity with territorial neighbours benefits breeders. We tested the hypothesis that great tits (Parus major) are more likely to join in neighbours' nest defence if those neighbours are familiar from the previous year. We show that neighbours that shared a territory boundary the previous year are more likely to join their neighbours' nest defence than neighbours that did not share a boundary before. Closer neighbours did not differ from distant neighbours in their latency to join. For familiar neighbours that joined, there was no difference in call rate in relation to whether one or both members of the focal pair were familiar. First-time breeders (by definition unfamiliar) did not join each other's nest defence. This is the first evidence of a relationship between familiarity and joining in nest defence. Such direct benefits of familiarity may have important implications in the evolution of sociality.
熟悉度在社会性和合作的进化中起着重要作用。熟悉的个体可能因参与或逃避合作任务而获得声誉。先前的研究表明，与领地邻居长期熟悉对繁殖者有益。我们测试了这样一个假设，即如果邻居是去年熟悉的，那么大山雀（Parus major）更有可能加入邻居的巢防御。我们表明，与去年没有共享边界的邻居相比，去年共享领地边界的邻居更有可能加入它们的邻居的巢防御。距离较近的邻居与距离较远的邻居相比，加入的潜伏期没有差异。对于熟悉的邻居来说，加入的原因与焦点对的两个成员是否都熟悉无关，其叫声率没有差异。初次繁殖者（根据定义是不熟悉的）没有加入彼此的巢防御。这是熟悉度与加入巢防御之间存在关系的第一个证据。这种熟悉度的直接好处可能对社会性的进化具有重要意义。
