Leighton Gavin M, Echeverri Sebastian, Heinrich Dirk, Kolberg Holger
Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Behav Ecol Sociobiol. 2015 Nov 1;69(11):1835-1843. doi: 10.1007/s00265-015-1996-8. Epub 2015 Aug 29.
Although communal goods are often critical to society, they are simultaneously susceptible to exploitation and are evolutionarily stable only if mechanisms exist to curtail exploitation. Mechanisms such as punishment and kin selection have been offered as general explanations for how communal resources can be maintained. Evidence for these mechanisms comes largely from humans and social insects, leaving their generality in question. To assess how communal resources are maintained, we observed cooperative nest construction in sociable weavers (). The communal nest of sociable weavers provides thermal benefits for all individuals but requires continual maintenance. We observed cooperative nest construction and also recorded basic morphological characteristics. We also collected blood samples, performed next-generation sequencing, and isolated 2358 variable single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to estimate relatedness. We find that relatedness predicts investment in cooperative nest construction, while no other morphological characters significantly explain cooperative output. We argue that indirect benefits are a critical fitness component for maintaining the cooperative behavior that maintains the communal good.
尽管公共物品对社会往往至关重要，但它们同时容易受到剥削，并且只有在存在抑制剥削的机制时才在进化上稳定。诸如惩罚和亲属选择等机制已被作为公共资源如何得以维持的一般解释。这些机制的证据主要来自人类和社会性昆虫，这使得它们的普遍性受到质疑。为了评估公共资源是如何维持的，我们观察了群居织巢鸟的合作筑巢行为（）。群居织巢鸟的公共巢穴为所有个体提供了保暖益处，但需要持续维护。我们观察了合作筑巢行为，并记录了基本形态特征。我们还采集了血样，进行了下一代测序，并分离出2358个可变单核苷酸多态性（SNP）以估计亲缘关系。我们发现亲缘关系预测了对合作筑巢的投入，而没有其他形态特征能显著解释合作产出。我们认为间接益处是维持维护公共物品的合作行为的关键适应性组成部分。
