Camerlenghi Ettore, Papageorgiou Danai
Department of Behavioural Ecology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld 33615, Germany.
School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TQ, UK.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2025 Mar 20;380(1922):20230274. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2023.0274.
Multi-level vertebrate societies, characterized by nested social units, allow individuals to perform a wide range of tasks in cooperation with others beyond their core social unit. In these societies, individuals can selectively interact with specific partners from higher social levels to cooperatively perform distinct tasks. Alternatively, social units of the same level can merge to form higher-level associations, enabling individuals to benefit from large social units without always maintaining a large core social unit. The reasons why multi-level sociality evolves in some systems but not in others are not well understood. We propose that this is partly due to a lack of data, especially regarding the fitness consequences of cooperation at different social levels. First, we argue that in multi-level societies individual fitness benefits should increase when performing tasks in cooperation with associates from higher social levels. Second, as more multi-level societies are documented across taxa, we will continue to find similar cooperative tasks performed at each of the different social levels. By providing compelling species examples, from dolphins to fairy-wrens, we underscore that despite the diversity of multi-level social organization, convergence in task performance across social levels will become clearer as more data accumulates. Finally, we highlight the role of multi-level sociality in buffering fluctuating environmental conditions by enabling flexible social associations to emerge according to need.This article is part of the theme issue 'Division of labour as key driver of social evolution'.
多层次脊椎动物社会以嵌套式社会单位为特征，使个体能够与核心社会单位之外的其他个体合作执行广泛的任务。在这些社会中，个体可以选择性地与更高社会层次的特定伙伴互动，以合作执行不同的任务。或者，同一层次的社会单位可以合并形成更高层次的联合体，使个体能够从大型社会单位中受益，而不必始终维持一个大型核心社会单位。多层次社会性在某些系统中进化而在其他系统中未进化的原因尚未得到很好的理解。我们认为，部分原因是缺乏数据，尤其是关于不同社会层次合作的适应性后果的数据。首先，我们认为在多层次社会中，当与更高社会层次的伙伴合作执行任务时，个体的适应性益处应该会增加。其次，随着越来越多的跨分类群多层次社会被记录下来，我们将继续发现不同社会层次都在执行类似的合作任务。通过提供从海豚到细尾鹩莺等引人注目的物种实例，我们强调，尽管多层次社会组织具有多样性，但随着更多数据的积累，不同社会层次在任务执行方面的趋同性将变得更加明显。最后，我们强调多层次社会性在缓冲波动的环境条件方面的作用，即通过根据需要形成灵活的社会联合体来实现。本文是主题为“分工是社会进化的关键驱动力”的一部分。
