Are Humans Cooperative Breeders? [1...my 6 min video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvz3D3sKlJ8&feature=youtu.be

Terminology In Social Biology: Cooperation= Intraspecific...Mutualism= Interspecific?

My query to Trivers:

Currently, there is a discussion on Twitter regarding proper usage of the term, "mutualism". 

In my training, "mutualism" is reserved for Interspecific interactions, "cooperation" for Intraspecific interactions.

It seems that in the Ecology literature, "mutualism" is reserved for Interspecific interactions but that in the Behavior literature, "mutualism" and "cooperation" appear to be used interchangeably.

Please "weigh in" on this terminological issue, permitting me to quote your reply.

Thank you for your attention to this post.  

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Response from Robert Trivers:

yes i am used to your distinction but have paid no attention to the word
or its use for many years

mutualiism classically was between species, neither harm nor benefit
given, or when benefit not to the level of a symbiosis

Clara B. Jones Comments On Terminology In Social Biology (YouTube)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0cMyWzB33o&feature=youtu.be

Summary of Comments:
1. Terminology in Social Biology not standardized across taxa from social microbes to humans.
2. Want standardized terminology for comprehensive Science of Social Biology and for formulation of general models ("laws", principles, treatments, statements) of Social Biology.
3. Comments pertain primarily to empirical literature since theoretical treatments are usually clear about notation and assumptions.
4. Comments pertain primarily to vertebrate literature since social insect literature generally utilizes Hamilton's 4-way schema defining conspecific interactions based upon differential reproductive costs and benefits*.
5. Two primary concerns at this time. First, usage of word "social".
6. "Social" used in 4 ways in literature:
a. grouped or clustered Population Structure (Spatial Ecology or Population Genetics);
b. any interaction between/among conspecifics;
c. any "positive" interaction between/among conspecifics (e.g., helping, many non-damaging responses);
d. an interaction whereby an Actor facilitates the reproduction* of a conspecific Recipient; this is W.D. Hamilton's definition, the definition that I advocate.
[1] usage of "positive" interaction is problematic;
[2] most researchers assume "positive" interactions are induced by cooperation or altruism;
[3] Hamilton defined "cooperation" as an interaction in which both Actor & Recipient benefit reproductively, defining "altruism" as an interaction in which the Recipient benefits at the expense of the Actor's reproduction;
[4] in Hamilton's system, Cooperation & Altruism are the only forms of Social interaction among conspecifics;
[5] problematically, "positive" interactions may be induced not only by Cooperation or Altruism but, also, by Selfish responses which Hamilton defined as an interaction among conspecifics whereby an Actor benefits reproductively at the expense of a Recipient;
[6] thus, we cannot assume that "positive" responses are necessarily induced by Cooperation or Altruism as is generally assumed in the literature;
[7] researchers, then, must differentiate between "positive" interactions induced by Cooperation or Altruism and "positive" interactions induced by Selfish responses (e.g., by coercion, force, persuasion, or exploitation [e.g., manipulation, "social parasitism").

*Reproductive costs and benefits may be measured as, for example, differential offspring mortality, number, quality, inter-birth-interval. See Lehmann & Keller (2006, JEB).

Notes + lulu.com link to book, A mechanistic approach to studying ..., covering social parasitism in mammals. Clara B. Jones

Notes:: Terminology: Social parasitism in social insects [after Holldobler & Wilson, 1998]...

I. Types of Social Parasitism: Coexistence in the same nest of two species of social insects, one of which is parasitically dependent upon the other. The term can, also, be applied loosely to the relation between symphiles and their social insect hosts. Symbioses, Commensalism; no documented cases of Mutualism. [Symphilic: an amicably-accepted symbiont; Symbiont: An organism living in symbiosis with another--n.b. Not all researchers consider Social Parasitism to be, Symbiosis].

1. Inquilinism: The relation in which a socially parasitic species spends the entire life cycle in the nests of its host species. Workers are either lacking or if present, scarce and degenerate in behavior. This condition sometimes referred to as "permanent parasitism"
2. Dulosis: The relation in which workers of a parasitic [dulotic or slave-making] ant species raid the nests of another species, capture brood [usually pupae], and rear them as enslaved nestmates.
3.Xenobiosis: The relation in which colonies of one species live in the nests of another species and move freely among the hosts, obtaining food from them by regurgitation or other means but still keeping their brood separate.
4.Parabiosis: The utilization of the same nest and sometimes the same odor trails by colonies of different species which nevertheless keep their broods separate.
5. Cleptobiosis: The relation in which one species robs the food stores or scavenges in the refuse piles of another species but does not nest in close association with it.
6. Lestobiosis: The relation in which colonies of a small species nest in the walls of the nests of a larger species and enter the chambers of the larger species to prey on brood or to rob the food stores.
7. Plesiobiosis: The close proximity of two or more nests, accompanied by little or no direct communiccation between the colonies inhabiting them.

n.b. "intermorph;" compound nests; mixed colonies

II. Social Parasitism most likely to be observed during population expansion or colony foundation. [in mammals, during dispersal?, settlement?]

III. Evolutionary factors: Disruptive Selection; Emery's Rule [parasite & host closely related or similar in other ways--in social insects, many exceptions to this rule observed]; Allopatric or Sympatric speciation [rapid rate of speciation]; Competition: [-, - interactions between species (or individuals?)]

IV. Do the principles observed in social insects apply across scale [i.e., to the individual level] and/or to other taxa, including, humans?


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https://www.lulu.com/shop/clara-b-jones/a-mechanistic-approach-to-studying-mammalian-populations/paperback/product-8dnw7q.html?q=clara+b.+jones&page=1&pageSize=4

Schematic Note On Mammalian Signaling

SCHEMATIC NOTE ON MAMMALIAN SIGNALING

Table 1: Sensory modalities of mammals (“Type of Signal or Display”), with examples, including, “Feature” or “Capacity” of Signal or Display in each of six domains. Signals or Displays may be emitted or advertized to one or more Receiver, and one or more animal (non-human or human) may be actively Eavesdropping (Figure 1). Depending upon physiological and behavioral traits of species, signal and display types represent a sensory “toolbox” with potential for multimodal (“complex”) transmission of information (Fig. 1). Both unimodal and multimodal communication are subject to temporal regulation, yielding varying sensory elements subject to statistical encoding, decoding, interpretation, and “prediction”. Despite potential for regulation of signal and display features, accurate signals are characterized by “redundancy”, a property that is highly correlated with reliability of communication (Wilson 1975).

On the other hand, messages are not necessarily selected for maximal accuracy*# in a single or a few contexts or domains since it may benefit individuals to utilize a signal or display in multiple contexts and for multiple functions, leading to one or more signals optimally effective across conditions. Furthermore, highly accurate messages may be easier to escape or avoid compared to “fuzzier” ones because they may be more detectable than (optimally) inaccurate signals. Thus, it may not benefit a Signaler to optimize production of a Receiver’s “pattern detection” mechanisms.

Signals and displays of “solitary” compared to social mammals are not necessarily less “complex” since different selection pressures may have favored different population structures and traits. However, excepting traits related to courtship and mating, signals and displays associated with within-group coordination and control (“integration”) are expected to be more differentiated, elaborate, and “complex” among social mammals because of higher local population density and, especially, higher rates of interaction. (©Clara B. Jones, based on Goodenough et al. 2009)

	TYPE OF SIGNAL OR DISPLAY
FEATURE OR CAPACITY	Visual (horns, proboscis, sexual swellings, mimicry, “natal coats”, stotting)	Auditory (howls, echolocation, ululation, “contact calls”, “alarm calls”, language)	Chemical (pheromone, excretions, venom)	Tactile (grooming, “neck bite”, copulation, spines, defensive integuments)	Electrical (monotremes)
Effective distance	Medium	High	High	Low	Low
Localization	High	Medium	Changeable	High	High
Ability to go around obstacles	Low	Medium	Medium	Medium	High
Detection of change	High	High	Low	High	High
Complexity	High	High	Low	Changeable	Low
Durability	Changeable	Low	High	Low	Low

*Recent research shows that inaccurate signals promote phenotypic flexibility. If this is generally the case, inaccurate signalling may be one alternative response that promotes coexistence, mutualism, and/or social behavior because the response may mitigate chances of competitive exclusion or aggression [aversive responses, punishment].

#See Sultan SE, Spencer HG 2002 Am Nat 160: 271-283, p 280, column 1, paragraph 2...

Figure 1: This figure displays a Signaler-Receiver schema in optimality (cost-benefit) context as follows. The classical, Ethological, view, adopted by behavioral ecologists, holds that “the actor [Signaler] is selected to manipulate the behaviour of the reactor [Receiver]”, and communication “makes sense only in the context of an exchange of information” (Dawkins and Krebs 1978) whereby a signal or display (Table 1) is employed by a Signaler to induce a self-interested, beneficial response. A corollary of the latter perspective would be that, as a recipient of information (the “signal” or “display”), a Receiver “decides” (Hebbian decision) to respond or not, becoming a potential “Sender”, responding in a manner, presumably, biased by the original “message” but, like the original transmission, biased by self-interest. Proximate and ultimate (reproductive) benefits or losses to Signalers will be a function of statistical averages, and Signalers whose messages, on average, produce a threshold-level of benefits “propagate their genes more efficiently” than Signalers who do not. Following Dawkins and Krebs (1978), “communication results in a net average benefit to the actor”.

Fig. 1 displays differential, initial benefits and costs to Signaler and Receiver; however, it remains unclear whether or to what extent, average benefits may accrue to Receivers, particularly, where signals or displays are “dishonest” (e.g., female mimicry of male genitalia, fake orgasm by females). The present discussion assumes that the condition-dependent, “fitness optima” of Signaler and the intended Receiver (or, unintended Receiver[s]) conflict. However, theory holds that some threshold of conflict will favor costly (“exaggerated”, “complex”), honest signals and displays, maximizing the transfer of “accurate” information and minimizing likelihoods of aggression (Tinbergen 1952). In these regimes, interactions between Sender and Receiver should be, “at least statistically, predictable from…past behaviour” (Dawkins and Krebs 1978). As Dawkins and Krebs (1978), Maynard Smith and Harper (2003), and Eisenberg (1981) point out, signals and displays may derive from changes in biological information emitted by a Signaler (“cues”), including, proximate or ultimate events associated with thermoregulation (e.g., “huddling”) and excretion (urination, defecation: e.g., orgasm). Calculations of differential benefits and costs are complicated by the recognition that such calculations (“decisions”) by “ego” are estimates of future gains and losses. ©Clara B. Jones (after Bradbury and Vehrencamp 1998)