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The Evolution and Ecology of Cooperation – History and Concepts

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Book cover Ecology of Social Evolution

We review the historical development of theory on the evolution and ecology of cooperation. Darwin launched this topic of inquiry with a surprisingly modern discussion of how fitness could be derived from both personal reproduction (direct fitness) and the reproduction of family (indirect fitness), and the anarchist Petr Kropotkin forever wove ecology into sociobiology with his book on Mutual Aid. From there, an eccentric group of protagonists took the helm and developed theories of social evolution with clear (although sometimes implicit) links to ecology. Here we provide a summary of the foundational theory, including Hamilton’s rule, neighbormodulated fitness, inclusive fitness, and levels of selection; discuss the classification and semantics of social behaviors; and give a brief overview of the various mechanisms that have been invoked to explain cooperation. Recently, models have emerged that frame the evolution of cooperation in an explicitly ecological context, including the theories of reproductive skew, cooperation in viscous populations, and the tragedy of the commons. In particular, rates and patterns of dispersal strongly influence fitness, the costs and benefits of sociality, and genetic relatedness in social groups. This is an exciting time for ecological sociobiology and there is a great need for studies that combine careful natural history with social evolutionary theory.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. St John's College, Oxford University, OX1 3JP, Oxford, UK

    Andy Gardner

  2. Center for Systems Biology, Center for Systems Biology, 02138, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Kevin R. Foster

Authors
  1. Andy Gardner
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  2. Kevin R. Foster
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Universität Regensburg, 93040, Regensburg, Germany

    Judith Korb  & Jörgen Heinze  & 

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Gardner, A., Foster, K.R. (2008). The Evolution and Ecology of Cooperation – History and Concepts. In: Korb, J., Heinze, J. (eds) Ecology of Social Evolution. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-75957-7_1

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