Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taipei 11529, Taiwan.
Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA.
Proc Biol Sci. 2020 Sep 30;287(1935):20201720. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2020.1720.
Although dominance hierarchies occur in most societies, our understanding of how these power structures influence individual investment in cooperative and competitive behaviours remains elusive. Both conflict and cooperation in animal societies are often environmentally regulated, yet how individuals alter their cooperative and competitive investments as environmental quality changes remain unclear. Using game theoretic modelling, we predict that individuals of all ranks will invest more in cooperation and less in social conflict in harsh environments than individuals of the same ranks in benign environments. Counterintuitively, low-ranking subordinates should increase their investment in cooperation proportionally more than high-ranking dominants, suggesting that subordinates contribute relatively more when facing environmental challenges. We then test and confirm these predictions experimentally using the Asian burying beetle . Ultimately, we demonstrate how social rank modulates the relationships between environmental quality and cooperative and competitive behaviours, a topic crucial for understanding the evolution of complex societies.
尽管统治等级制度在大多数社会中都存在，但我们对于这些权力结构如何影响个体在合作和竞争行为中的投入的理解仍然难以捉摸。动物社会中的冲突和合作通常受到环境的调节，但个体如何随着环境质量的变化而改变其合作和竞争的投入尚不清楚。通过博弈论建模，我们预测所有等级的个体在恶劣环境中比在良性环境中投入更多的合作和更少的社会冲突。与直觉相反的是，低等级的下属应该比高等级的支配者更成比例地增加合作投入，这表明下属在面临环境挑战时贡献相对更多。然后，我们使用亚洲埋葬甲虫 进行了实验验证和确认。最终，我们展示了社会等级如何调节环境质量与合作和竞争行为之间的关系，这是理解复杂社会进化的关键话题。
