Posts
2026-05-20
How rewards can promote public goods production (but also free riding)
Photo by Audric Wonkam on Unsplash Rewards for public goods Animals in groups often contribute to the production of...
2025-11-11
Theory and reality: The purpose of theoretical modelling in ecology and evolution
How are models developed in behavioural ecology? Theoretical models fall into two broad categories: mechanistic models...
2023-08-12
Group size and cooperation
Do animals in larger groups always cooperate less? The more people who observe an incident like a fire, the less likely...
Works
In most cooperative animal societies, interactions between groups are hostile or antagonistic...
When animals in groups cooperate, individuals sometimes produce a ‘public’ good that benefits many or all group members and receive a private reward (that is not shared with others)...
Many examples of cooperation in nature involve the trade of goods in biological markets...
Some social animals provide a public benefit for private reward, creating market-like competition amongst providers...
The volunteer's dilemma, in which a single individual is required to produce a public good, predicts that individuals in larger groups will cooperate less frequently...
Recognition of group members is an important adaptation in social organisms because it allows help to be directed toward kin or individuals that are likely to reciprocate, and harm to be directed toward members of competing groups...
Advances in individual marking methods have facilitated detailed studies of animal populations and behavior as they allow tracking of individuals through time and space...