Taborsky Michael
Behavioural Ecology, University of Bern, Hinterkappelen, CH-3032, Switzerland.
Department of Collective Behavior, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, D-78467, Germany.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2025 Mar 20;380(1922):20230262. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2023.0262.
Division of Labour (DoL) among group members reflects the pinnacle of social complexity. The synergistic effects created by task specialization and the sharing of duties benefitting the group raise the efficiency of the acquisition, use, management and defence of resources by a fundamental step above the potential of individual agents. At the same time, it may stabilize societies because of the involved interdependence among collaborators. Here, I review the conditions associated with the emergence of DoL, which include the existence of (i) sizeable groups with enduring membership; (ii) individual specialization improving the efficiency of task performance; and (iii) low conflict of interest among group members owing to correlated payoffs. This results in (iv) a combination of intra-individual consistency with inter-individual variance in carrying out different tasks, which creates (v) some degree of mutual interdependence among group members. DoL typically evolves 'bottom-up' without external regulatory forces, but the latter may gain importance at a later stage of the evolution of social complexity. Owing to the involved feedback processes, cause and effect are often difficult to disentangle in the evolutionary trajectory towards structured societies with well-developed DoL among their members. Nevertheless, the emergence of task specialization and DoL may entail a one-way street towards social complexity, with retrogression getting increasingly difficult the more individual agents depend on each other at progressing stages of social evolution.This article is part of the theme issue 'Division of labour as key driver of social evolution'.
群体成员之间的分工反映了社会复杂性的巅峰。任务专业化和职责分担所产生的协同效应使群体受益，这将获取、使用、管理和保卫资源的效率提升至远远高于个体能力的水平。同时，由于合作者之间存在相互依存关系，分工可能会使社会更加稳定。在此，我回顾了与分工出现相关的条件，这些条件包括：（i）存在成员稳定的大型群体；（ii）个体专业化提高任务执行效率；（iii）由于收益相关，群体成员之间的利益冲突较低。这导致（iv）个体在执行不同任务时内部一致性与个体间差异相结合，进而产生（v）群体成员之间一定程度的相互依存关系。分工通常在没有外部监管力量的情况下“自下而上”地演变，但在社会复杂性演变的后期，外部监管力量可能会变得重要。由于其中涉及反馈过程，在朝着成员间分工发达的结构化社会的进化轨迹中，因果关系往往难以厘清。然而，任务专业化和分工的出现可能是通往社会复杂性的单向道路，在社会进化的进程中，随着个体之间相互依赖程度的增加，倒退变得越来越困难。本文是主题为“分工是社会进化的关键驱动力”的一部分。
