Social Evolution Research Articles

Collaborative hunting in artificial agents with deep reinforcement learning.

Collaborative hunting, in which predators play different and complementary roles to capture prey, has been traditionally believed to be an advanced hunting strategy requiring large brains that involve high-level cognition. However, recent findings that collaborative hunting has also been documented in smaller-brained vertebrates have placed this previous belief under strain. Here, using computational multi-agent simulations based on deep reinforcement learning, we demonstrate that decisions underlying collaborative hunts do not necessarily rely on sophisticated cognitive processes. We found that apparently elaborate coordination can be achieved through a relatively simple decision process of mapping between states and actions related to distance-dependent internal representations formed by prior experience. Furthermore, we confirmed that this decision rule of predators is robust against unknown prey controlled by humans. Our computational ecological results emphasize that collaborative hunting can emerge in various intra- and inter-specific interactions in nature, and provide insights into the evolution of sociality.

Culture, Cooperation, and Communication: The Co-evolution of Hominin Cognition, Sociality, and Musicality

Abstract Music is a deeply entrenched human phenomenon. In this article, I argue that its evolutionary origins are intrinsically intertwined with the incremental anatomical, cognitive, social, and technological evolution of the hominin lineage. I propose an account of the evolution of Plio-Pleistocene hominins, focusing on traits that would be later implicated in music making. Such traits can be conceived as comprising the musicality mosaic or the multifaceted foundations of musicality. I then articulate and defend an account of protomusical behaviour, drawing theoretical licence from the social brain framework of Robin Dunbar and colleagues, as well as the evolutionary framework for human culture and cooperation developed by Kim Sterelny. The role of gene-culture co-evolution and niche construction is brought to the fore in articulating the evolutionary account. Finally, I defend the view that music subsequently developed via processes of social learning and cumulative culture.

Thermodynamic Evaluation of Low-GWP and Environmentally Friendly Alternative Refrigerants

Refrigerant systems, crucial for modern life, are increasingly important due to their environmental impact and rising energy costs, with their advancement influenced by social life evolution and widespread use in homes and buildings. A systematic search using thermodynamic models identified 48 possible ternary mixtures and 5 pure refrigerants. These combinations, based on thermodynamics, could provide energy savings, paving the way for real-world testing and definitive conclusions, not yet studied in literature. REFPROP refers to the reference fluid properties program, developed by NIST version 9.0 for 2010, is a program for calculating the thermodynamic and transport properties of industrially important fluids and their mixtures. This program was used to evaluate the refrigerant properties in different mixing ratios. Then, using the MATLAB version of 2020 apparatus to arrange and solve all the variables to generate the results under set boundary conditions, all the characteristics were incorporated into thermodynamic equations. when compared to R134a, the results demonstrated that mixtures of natural refrigerants usually have acceptable thermal performance; these mixtures may be recommended as suitable replacements for refrigeration and air conditioning systems because they are environmentally harmless and have a low GWP.

Vietnam tourism at the crossroads of socialism and market economy

Purpose Vietnam has repositioned itself from a war-torn country to a popular tourist destination. Although research on Vietnam tourism has grown in number, a macro analysis of national tourism governance and policies has largely been missing. Design/methodology/approach This synthesis paper offers a systemic analysis of Vietnam’s tourism accommodating intensified government intervention and dramatic market changes in recent decades. The authors offer a chronological analysis of tourism development along with the major political and economic turns of the country. Findings The patterns of tourism development reflect a compromise between centralization and decentralization of the governance system and a trade-off between economic and social objectives of development. Balancing these opposites, the internal strength of the domestic market and the resilience of communities and businesses become key assets for growth in circumstances where the socialist market economy continues to inform the current and future development of the industry. Research limitations/implications Although the case of Vietnam is unique, the adaptive mechanism of the tourism industry highlighted in this paper offers a useful lesson for other developing countries. The research addresses tourism in the political economy in developing countries, which is valuable for researchers, policy analysts as well as practitioners in tourism. Practical implications The practical contribution of the study is derived from authors’ academic and industrial backgrounds. Findings from the study serve as a useful reference for those who embark on the study of tourism governance and policy-making in developing countries and problems associated with the economic transitional process. Those problems of the disparity between centralization and decentralization of the political system might not be only significant in Vietnam, but also prevail in developing countries. Thus, this study offers a point of departure for future empirical and comparative research on the kindship of tourism and political economy in a full scale. Social implications The transitional economy as viewed through the tourism industry is prominently presented in the “evolutionary” approach to the transitional economy, which exhibits several unique features: the transition from a centrally planned (command) economy to a market economy and the manifestations of a socialist orientation in the modern economic management system (Vuong et al., 2019). While data from this study is mainly illustrative of the first point, the transition from a planned economy to a market economy, the second characteristic, the manifestation of a social orientation has only slightly been addressed and will need further elaboration in a future study. While Vietnam’s tourism positions itself in a socialist market-oriented economy might set a unique case, the study highlights the politics of tourism is shaped by the politico-economic system. The authors conclude that the adaptation of Vietnam tourism to a socialist market-orientated economy is better perceived as a social evolution achievement rather than a feature of capitalism. Originality/value The latest study on tourism governance (Bui et al., 2022) has outlined the evolution of the tourism administrative system and markets in the country; however, linkages of tourism to the broader political economic system have yet to be addressed. Addressing this gap, the authors carry out analysis of policies and governance from the insider’s viewpoint, when team members have been involved in numerous tourism planning and development projects, both on international and national scales. The practical experience along with thorough review of literature and statistical data contributes to shaping a fresh understanding of tourism in a transitional economy.

Analysis of the Development Trajectory of Marxs Historical Philosophy

In his early years, Marx, inspired by Hegel, believed that history is a process of dynamic evolution. Therefore, he also paid attention to the replacement of social forms and the differences in social forms among different ethnic groups. While Hegel believed that the driving force of historical progress lies in spirit, Marx focused more on the role of material in it. Thus, in his theories of social forms and world history, Marx emphasized the historical progress brought about by changes in the mode of production. Based on this, Marx expounded his views on the evolution of social forms and the development status and prospects of world history. He consistently held a equality political inclination and continued to pay attention to the oppression suffered by backward nations. This paper summarizes Marxs social form theory, world history theory, and his related discussions on backward nations in his historical philosophy. It outlines the global perspective from the internal social evolution of nations to the coordinated development of the world, and then to Marxs humanitarian care for backward nations.

Is Pollution the Primary Driver of Infectious Syndemics?

Syndemics, the adverse interaction of two or more coterminous diseases or other negative health conditions, have probably existed since human settlement, plant and animal domestication, urbanization, and the growth of social inequality beginning about 10–12,000 years ago. These dramatic changes in human social evolution significantly increased opportunities for the spread of zoonotic infectious diseases in denser human communities with increased sanitation challenges. In light of a growing body of research that indicates that anthropogenic air pollution causes numerous threats to health and is taking a far greater toll on human life and wellbeing than had been reported, this paper proposes the possibility that air pollution is now the primary driver of infectious disease syndemics. In support of this assertion, this paper reviews the growth and health impacts of air pollution, the relationship of air pollution to the development and spread of infectious diseases, and reported cases of air pollution-driven infectious disease syndemics, and presents public health recommendations for leveraging the biosocial insight of syndemic theory in responding to infectious disease.

Looking at the bid picture: A framework for identifying reverse auctions in ecological systems.

Biological market theory can be used to explain intraspecific cooperation, interspecific mutualism, and sexual selection through models of game theory. These models describe the interactions between organisms as two classes of traders (buyers/sellers) exchanging commodities in the form of goods (e.g. food, shelter, matings) and services (e.g. warning calls, protection). Here, we expand biological market theory to include auction theory where bidding serves to match buyers and sellers. In a reverse auction, the seller increases the value of the item or decreases the cost until a buyer steps forward. We provide several examples of ecological systems that may have reverse auctions as underlying mechanisms to form mutualistic relationships. We focus on the yellow baboon (Papio cynocephalus) mating system as a case study to propose how the mechanisms of a reverse auction, which have the unintended but emergent consequence of producing a mutually beneficial outcome that improves collective reproductive benefits of the troop in this multi-female multi-male polygynandrous social system. For the yellow baboon, we posit that the "seller" is the reproductively cycling female, and the "buyer" is a male looking to mate with a cycling female. To the male, the "item for the sale" is the opportunity to sire an offspring, the price is providing safety and foraging time (via consortship) to the female. The "increasing value of the item for sale" is the chance of conception, which increases with each cycle since a female has resumed cycling post-partum. The female's sexual swelling is an honest indicator of that cycle's probability of conception, and since resident males can track a female's cycle since resumption, there is transparency. The males presumably know the chance of conception when choosing to bid by offering consortship. Across nature, this reverse auction game likely exists in other inter- and intraspecific social relationships. Considering an ecological system as a reverse auction broadens our view of social evolution and adaptations through the lens of human economic structures.

Modeling the evolution of collective overreaction in dynamic online product diffusion networks

With the development of e-commerce, collective overreactions such as buying frenzy have become prominent. However, studies have rarely investigated the mechanism of irrational consumer behavior at the group level. To investigate the evolution of collective overreaction in dynamic online product diffusion networks, we employed a sequential multiple-methods approach. A conceptual model is constructed to capture the influence of social network dynamic evolution on individual irrationality. An agent-based model (ABM) under different network dynamic growth mechanisms is implemented and verified. The findings revealed the following. In external dynamic growth mechanisms, key opinion consumer (KOC) connection can lead to positive collective overreaction (i.e., the adoption rate of consumer groups spikes). This effect fades as the probability of KOC connection increases and stabilizes as the node change rate decreases. Random connection is prone to negative collective overreaction (i.e., a sudden and sharp decline in the adoption rate of consumer groups), and key opinion leader (KOL) connection exhibits both positive and negative collective overreaction. Increasing the edge change rate increases the frequency of negative collective overreaction in KOL connections. In internal dynamic growth mechanisms, KOL and KOC connections are prone to negative collective overreaction; increasing the edge change rate can reduce the frequency of negative collective overreaction in KOL overreaction, and an appropriate edge change rate can inhibit the emergence of negative collective overreaction in KOC connection. This research contributes to the area of internet product marketing and provides a new basic framework through which to combine psychology and the ABM.

Analyzing the Impact of Innovative Features in New Social Networks on User Engagement and Content Sharing Dynamics

This study investigates the effects of novel functionalities on user behavior across emerging social media platforms. Employing a mixed-methods research design, the study integrates quantitative analysis of engagement metrics with qualitative feedback from user interviews and surveys to assess how augmented reality (AR) filters, ephemeral content, and algorithmic curation influence engagement and content sharing. Results indicate these features significantly enhance user interaction, suggesting that innovation is key to user retention and active participation. Additionally, the study examines the double-edged nature of algorithmic curation, balancing user experience personalization against the risks of creating informational echo chambers. The implications of these findings extend to various stakeholders in the digital ecosystem, including content creators, marketers, technology developers, and policymakers, emphasizing the importance of user-centric innovation and ethical considerations in platform development. This research contributes to the broader understanding of social media evolution and its impact on digital communication practices.

Taxonomic notes on the Zethus olmecus de Saussure, 1875 species group (Hymenoptera, Vespidae, Eumeninae), with the description of five new species

Zethus Fabricius is the largest genus within Vespidae with nearly 300 species. The genus has a central role on discussion of social evolution, once some species share behavioral features between solitary and social representatives of vespids and the genus has been recovered as phylogenetically closer to social wasps than to other Eumeninae. The Zethus olmecus species group is even more remarkable since there are observations of communal nesting behavior, a fact misused as support for the hypothesis of closer relationship to social wasps. Herein we closely investigate the taxonomy of this group of species, the first step needed for future studies to properly approach its evolution. The taxonomic approach involved examination of external morphology and male genitalia. Five new species are described for the group: Z. bolivari n. sp., Z. hermesi n. sp., Z. hexacirratus n. sp., Z. perilloi n. sp., and Z. utingensis n. sp. The unknown female of Z. peruvicus is also described. An illustrated taxonomic key is presented. Geographical distribution is expanded for Z. peruvicus, Z. pygmaeus, Z. thoracicus, and Z. toltecus. Finally, additional notes and corrections of existing literature are given.

The Budding Neuroscience of Ant Social Behavior.

Ant physiology has been fashioned by 100 million years of social evolution. Ants perform many sophisticated social and collective behaviors yet possess nervous systems similar in schematic and scale to that of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, a popular solitary model organism. Ants are thus attractive complementary subjects to investigate adaptations pertaining to complex social behaviors that are absent in flies. Despite research interest in ant behavior and the neurobiological foundations of sociality more broadly, our understanding of the ant nervous system is incomplete. Recent technical advances have enabled cutting-edge investigations of the nervous system in a fashion that is less dependent on model choice, opening the door for mechanistic social insect neuroscience. In this review, we revisit important aspects of what is known about the ant nervous system and behavior, and we look forward to how functional circuit neuroscience in ants will help us understand what distinguishes solitary animals from highly social ones.

Postromanticizing the Nigerian Nation in Chinelo Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees and Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀’s Stay with Me

Abstract This essay analyzes representations of (anti)romantic relationships and episodes of “forced intimacy” in Chinelo Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees (2015) and Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀’s Stay with Me (2017). I will establish a parallelism between the intimate and romantic relationships described in the novels and the social and political evolution of the Nigerian nation, placing the focus onto the female protagonists and their obligation to conform to preestablished feminine and heterosexual models in agreement with Nigerian traditional practices. Through the analysis of the affective and sociocultural evolution of these women, I aim to prove that there is a direct association between demystified representations of the nation and a disillusionment with the romantic ideals of the couples featured in the novels. I will refer to their evolution as “postromantic” since it transcends the performativity linked to romanticization.

Assessing the role of meat consumption in human evolutionary changes. A review

The historical study of changes in food patterns is an integral part of the study of biological and social adaptations during the formation and further development of Homo sapiens species. For quite a long time, diets have been considered the driving force of human evolution. Changes in the type of food consumed and the way it was obtained have been associated with encephalization and the emergence of bipedalism, as well as ecological, social and cultural evolution of hominins1 . Archaeological and paleontological evidence indicates that at least about 3 million years ago, hominins increased their meat consumption and developed the necessary fabricated stone tools, while their brains and bodies evolved for a novel foraging niche and expanded hunting grounds. Animalsource foods have always been an integral part of the human diet. However, the way they are obtained and processed changed dramatically during human evolution. Meat became a common food source when systematic hunting began using technologies and tools focused on killing animals and meat cutting, which reduced the time and effort spent on chewing food, and later, on its cooking. At some point after this, humans began to hunt together, which made it possible to obtain meat from big game, and as a result, develop the social and altruistic skills to distribute the prey between sexes and ages. The eating habits of our ancestors have been studied using a variety of methods, including anthropometry, the use of archaeological data, and isotope analysis of bones and teeth to determine trophic status. The adaptive biological significance of meat-eating, which played an important role in human evolution, was analyzed, including the “expensive tissue hypothesis” draw attention to the evolutionary forces responsible for the increase in hominin brain size. Furthermore, data on changes in human anatomy, digestion and metabolism are systematized, indicating an evolutionary dependence on and compatibility with significant meat consumption. At the same time, a number of changes in the human body are associated with the skill of using fire in cooking. Heat processing of food stimulated our ancestors to overcome the food specialization intrinsic to animals. The question of what is the right diet for the human species and what are the potential consequences of limiting meat consumption is briefly addressed.

Proximity and preening in captive Humboldt penguins

Group-living animals, including penguins, exhibit affiliative behaviors such as grooming, preening, and proximity. Such behaviors in non-primate animals have been less studied than those in primates. Our research focused on 20 identifiable Humboldt penguins in a zoo, analyzing kin relationships and reciprocity in preening and proximity by employing a 5-minute scan sampling method to observe and record individual behavior. Our findings revealed that preening and proximity were more prevalent among the mating pairs. However, among non-mate pairs, such behaviors were more commonly observed between siblings and parent-offspring pairs. Notably, the individuals preened on each other simultaneously in all instances. This study highlights the potential influence of kin selection in shaping the affiliative behavior of penguins. Additionally, our findings indicate that penguins gain benefits from mutual preening. This study contributes to our understanding of social behaviors in non-primate species and emphasizes the need for further comparative studies of various animal taxa to elucidate the evolution of sociality.

It's about time: Feeding competition costs of sociality are affected more by temporal characteristics than spatial distribution.

For most herbivorous animals, group-living appears to incur a high cost by intensifying feeding competition. These costs raise the question of how gregariousness (i.e., the tendency to aggregate) could have evolved to such an extent in taxa such as anthropoid primates and ungulates. When attempting to test the potential benefits and costs, previous foraging models demonstrated that group-living might be beneficial by lowering variance in intake, but that it reduces overall foraging success. However, these models did not fully account for the fact that gregariousness has multiple experiences and can vary in relation to ecological variables and foraging competition. Here, we present an agent-based model for testing how ecological variables impact the costs and benefits of gregariousness. In our simulations, primate-like agents forage on a variable resource landscape while maintaining spatial cohesion with conspecifics to varying degrees. The agents' energy intake rate, daily distance traveled, and variance in energy intake were recorded. Using Morris Elementary Effects sensitivity analysis, we tested the sensitivity of 10 model parameters, of which 2 controlled gregarious behavior and 8 controlled food resources, including multiple aspects of temporal and spatial heterogeneity. We found that, while gregariousness generally increased feeding competition, the costs of gregariousness were much lower when resources were less variable over time (i.e., when calorie extraction was slow and resource renewal was frequent). We also found that maintaining proximity to other agents resulted in lower variance in energy intake when resources were more variable over time. Thus, it appears that the costs and benefits of gregariousness are strongly influenced by the temporal characteristics of food resources, giving insight into the pressures that shaped the evolution of sociality and group living, including in our own lineage.

Nonlinear social evolution and the emergence of collective action.

Organisms from microbes to humans engage in a variety of social behaviors, which affect fitness in complex, often nonlinear ways. The question of how these behaviors evolve has consequences ranging from antibiotic resistance to human origins. However, evolution with nonlinear social interactions is challenging to model mathematically, especially in combination with spatial, group, and/or kin assortment. We derive a mathematical condition for natural selection with synergistic interactions among any number of individuals. This result applies to populations with arbitrary (but fixed) spatial or network structure, group subdivision, and/or mating patterns. In this condition, nonlinear fitness effects are ascribed to collectives, and weighted by a new measure of collective relatedness. For weak selection, this condition can be systematically evaluated by computing branch lengths of ancestral trees. We apply this condition to pairwise games between diploid relatives, and to dilemmas of collective help or harm among siblings and on spatial networks. Our work provides a rigorous basis for extending the notion of "actor", in the study of social evolution, from individuals to collectives.

You lick me, I like you: understanding the function of allogrooming in ungulates

ABSTRACT Allogrooming is a common affiliative behaviour with hygienic, physiological and social consequences, and has historically been examined in non‐human primates in order to understand the evolution of sociality. In primates, allogrooming is well‐known to have evolved for an antiparasitic function, leading to physiological consequences and further adoption of the behaviour for social functions. This includes exchanging benefits in a biological market, post‐conflict reconciliation and long‐term social bond formation. The relevant importance of these functions is largely undetermined in many non‐primate taxa, including ungulates. We aimed to evaluate the current evidence for allogrooming function in ungulates, asking whether the behaviour serves a social function, and if so, to what magnitude. Ungulates show large differences in their allogrooming behaviour, but the variation of these has not been truly understood. We find that although allogrooming in ungulates has been co‐opted for social purposes such as bond formation, the variety of these has not been fully explored. Identifying species‐specific allogrooming functions can help to clarify the context of behaviour; this allows us to improve our knowledge of how individuals and groups interact within a population, and understand the implications of this behaviour when deducing animal state and sociality. We conclude that there is great potential for additional research into the benefits of affiliative behaviour in ungulates, and we encourage further exploration into the social functions of allogrooming in ungulates.

Manipulating multi-level selection in a fungal entomopathogen reveals social conflicts and a method for improving biocontrol traits.

Changes in parasite virulence are commonly expected to lead to trade-offs in other life history traits that can affect fitness. Understanding these trade-offs is particularly important if we want to manipulate the virulence of microbial biological control agents. Theoretically, selection across different spatial scales, i.e. between- and within-hosts, shapes these trade-offs. However, trade-offs are also dependent on parasite biology. Despite their applied importance the evolution of virulence in fungal parasites is poorly understood: virulence can be unstable in culture and commonly fails to increase in simple passage experiments. We hypothesized that manipulating selection intensity at different scales would reveal virulence trade-offs in a fungal pathogen of aphids, Akanthomyces muscarius. Starting with a genetically diverse stock we selected for speed of kill, parasite yield or infectivity by manipulating competition within and between hosts and between-populations of hosts over 7 rounds of infection. We characterized ancestral and evolved lineages by whole genome sequencing and by measuring virulence, growth rate, sporulation and fitness. While several lineages showed increases in virulence, we saw none of the trade-offs commonly found in obligately-killing parasites. Phenotypically similar lineages within treatments often shared multiple single-nucleotide variants, indicating strong convergent evolution. The most dramatic phenotypic changes were in timing of sporulation and spore production in vitro. We found that early sporulation led to reduced competitive fitness but could increase yield of spores on media, a trade-off characteristic of social conflict. Notably, the selection regime with strongest between-population competition and lowest genetic diversity produced the most consistent shift to early sporulation, as predicted by social evolution theory. Multi-level selection therefore revealed social interactions novel to fungi and showed that these biocontrol agents have the genomic flexibility to improve multiple traits-virulence and spore production-that are often in conflict in other parasites.

First detailed report of cooperative breeding in red-billed blue magpie (Urocissa erythrorhyncha) in central China

Abstract The cooperative breeding system of birds is an ideal model for studying and exploring social evolution in animals. However, a basic question, i.e., how many cooperative-breeding bird species exist in the world, remains controversial due to the lack of accumulated knowledge of the natural history of many birds, which prevents a generalized understanding of the evolution of cooperative breeding in birds and challenges the accuracy of results in many comparative studies. In this paper, we provide the first evidence of cooperative breeding in red-billed blue magpies (Urocissa erythrorhyncha). Moreover, we document and discuss potential relationships between cooperative breeding and nest predation, brood parasitism and breeding performance in U. erythrorhyncha. These findings about cooperative breeding in red-billed blue magpie will lay a foundation for further research on this species’ sociality and provide useful insights into the evolution of cooperative breeding and other social systems in birds.

Hallin and Mancini: Two Decades of Influence in Politics and Communications

Since its publication in 2004, Hallin and Mancini’s model has become a pioneer in understanding the dynamics of media systems in different national contexts. Many studies related to politics that identify the patterns, trends, and variations used by communication systems in different countries and historical moments follow this seminal study to evaluate the formation of public opinion and the quality of democracy. For this article, we obtained 3,455 articles published in Web of Science within the Social Sciences Citation Index using the open-source software Science Mapping Analysis Tool, which we chose as a bibliometric technique for its feasibility in providing a conceptual structure through the spatial representation and disciplinary interrelation with fields like specialization, studies, and authors. By analyzing the co-occurrence of keywords, we drew scientific maps that enable the analysis of their conceptual and social evolution over consecutive periods. The results provide up-to-date information on the state of the model and its relevance in the field of communication and policy today, its strengths, limitations and potential areas of development. The findings identify less studied areas in the field, drawing inspiration from the Mancini model. This opens up a guide for future research by identifying themes and questions through bibliometric analysis.