Symposium: The Development and Mechanisms Underlying Inter-individual Variation in Pro-social Behavior

Animals spend a high proportion of their time interacting cooperatively with conspecifics. This ranges from courtship, mating, and parental care behaviors to the complex coordinated behavior among related or unrelated individuals in group-living species. The evolutionary causes and consequences of such cooperative behavior have been a focus of biological research for nearly two centuries. A number of theoretical models such as those based upon reciprocity or kin selection predict the conditions under which cooperation is likely to evolve through natural selection. Although these models have resulted in productive research paradigms that have shaped the formal study of animal behavior for >50 years, recent models suggest that the evolution of cooperation is also heavily influenced by the degree of individual-variation in cooperative behavior as well as their underlying developmental and proximate mechanisms. Individual variation in cooperative behavior and the mechanisms underlying it are understudied by empiricists, despite their potential importance for the evolution of cooperation and social organization. The goal of our symposium is to produce a road map to study the developmental and proximate mechanisms in generating individual variation in cooperative behavior. Thus, we aim to establish new research avenues to study variation in cooperation using both proximate and ultimate explanations.

Sponsors: DAB, DCE, DEE & DNB

 

Organizers

• Ben Dantzer, University of Michigan
• Dustin Rubenstein, Columbia University

Speakers

S9-1 Sunday, Jan. 8, 07:45 DANTZER, Ben:

Introduction: what is the importance of individual variation in cooperativeness?

S9-2 Sunday, Jan. 8, 08:00 RUBENSTEIN, DR:

From individual to group-level variation in cooperative behaviors and complex societies

S9-3 Sunday, Jan. 8, 08:30 VAN CLEVE, Jeremy; VAN CLEVE, Jeremy:

Stags, hawks, and doves: Individual variation in helping in social evolution theory

S9-4 Sunday, Jan. 8, 09:00 DORNHAUS, Anna:

Social insect colonies as individuals and groups: development and evolution of individual differences

S9-5 Sunday, Jan. 8, 10:00 SHEEHAN, Michael J:

Not all partners are equal: A role for identity signaling in generating differential cooperative behavior.

S9-6 Sunday, Jan. 8, 10:30 SALTZMAN, W.:

Paternal Behavior in a Biparental Rodent: Between- and Within-animal Variation

S9-7 Sunday, Jan. 8, 11:00 SMITH, Jennifer E.*; PETELLE, Matthew B. ; JEROME, Emily L. ; CRISTOFARI, Hélène ; BLUMSTEIN, Daniel T. :

The role of oxytocin in shaping prosocial behavior: new evidence from free-living ground squirrels and other social mammals

S9-8 Sunday, Jan. 8, 11:30 LEIGHTON, GM*; WANG, X; GUTENKUNST, RN; DORNHAUS, A:

Delimiting Gene Expression Differences Between Behavioral Castes in Temnothorax rugatulus

S9-9 Sunday, Jan. 8, 13:30 HOFMANN, Hans A; HOFMANN, Johann:

Neural and molecular mechanisms of cooperative defense

S9-10 Sunday, Jan. 8, 14:00 KELLY, Aubrey*; OPHIR, Alexander:

The influence of family dynamics on developmental trajectories and modulation of social behavior in prairie voles

S9-11 Sunday, Jan. 8, 14:30 HERB, Brian R.:

Epigenetic basis of development of social behaviors in honeybees

S9-12 Sunday, Jan. 8, 15:00 REHAN, SM:

Social aggression, experience, and brain gene expression in a subsocial bee

 

All participants are encouraged to gather for discussion after the symposium at the Wine & Cheese Reception that closes the meeting.