Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-9pm4c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T11:07:21.324Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Understanding the Trade-off between Cooperation and Conflict in Avian Societies

from Part III - Species Comparisons

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2021

By
Amanda R. Ridley  and
Martha J. Nelson-Flower
Edited by
Walter Wilczynski  and
Sarah F. Brosnan
Walter Wilczynski
Affiliation:
Georgia State University
Sarah F. Brosnan
Affiliation:
Georgia State University
Get access

Summary

The evolutionary paradox of animals helping others in their social group, rather than living independently, has fascinated researchers for many decades. Ultimately, this cooperation is hypothesized to have evolved because the benefits of cooperation outweigh the costs (Hamilton, 1964), and considerable empirical evidence supports this hypothesis (see Koenig and Dickinson, 2016). However, one major cost of cooperation, particularly for territorial cooperative breeders, is conflict (Shen et al., 2017; Nelson-Flower et al., 2018a). This conflict may occur both within and between groups; such conflict includes access to reproductive opportunities, social status, territory, water, or food. We suggest that a consideration of the influence of both intergroup and intragroup levels of conflict in individual decisions to cooperate is essential, since intragroup conflict may lead to decisions to disperse if intergroup opportunities to mate are high, whereas high levels of intergroup conflict may promote intragroup cooperation in order to defend existing resources (see Chapter 10 for review of inter- vs. intragroup aggression in social insects). Conflict is therefore a natural outcome of cooperation, and the level of conflict may define the point at which cooperation is no longer a beneficial strategy for individuals. This possibility, that conflict at both inter- and intragroup levels define the stability of cooperation over time, remains relatively under-explored despite its potential importance in understanding the evolution of cooperation.

Type
Chapter
Information
Cooperation and Conflict
The Interaction of Opposites in Shaping Social Behavior
 , pp. 167 - 184
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alberts, S. C. (2019) Social influences on survival and reproduction: Insights from a long-term study of wild baboons. Journal of Animal Ecology, 88: 47–66.Google Scholar
Angulo, E., Luque, G. M., Gregory, S. D., Wenzel, J. W., Bessa-Gomes, C., Berec, L., and Courchamp, F. (2018) Allee effects in social species. Journal of Animal Ecology, 87: 47–58.Google Scholar
Angulo, E., Rasmussen, G. S. A., MacDonald, D. W., and Courchamp, F. (2009) Do social groups prevent Allee effect related extinctions? The case of wild dogs. Frontiers in Zoology, 10: 11.Google Scholar
Baglione, V., Canestrari, D., Marcos, J. M. 2006. Experimentally increased food resources in the natal territory promote offspring philopatry and helping in cooperatively breeding carrion crows. Proceedings of the Royal Society London B Biological Science, 273: 1529–1535.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Batchelor, T. P., and Briffa, M. (2011) Fight tactics in wood ants: Individuals in smaller groups fight harder but die faster. Proceedings of the Royal Society London B Biological Science, 278: 3242–3250.Google Scholar
Beauchamp, G. (2009) How does food density influence vigilance in birds and mammals? Animal Behaviour, 78(2): 223–231.Google Scholar
Beauchamp, G. (2014) Do avian cooperative breeders live longer? Proceedings of the Royal Society London B Biological Science, 281: 20140844.Google Scholar
Canestrari, D., Marcos, J. M., and Baglione, V. (2008) Reproductive success increases with group size in cooperative carrion crows Corvus corone corone. Animal Behaviour, 75: 403–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christensen, C., and Radford, A. N. (2018) Dear enemies or nasty neighbours? Causes and consequences of variation in the response of group-living species to territorial intrusions. Behavioral Ecology, 29: 1004–1013.Google Scholar
Choi, J. K., and Bowles, S. (2007) The coevolution of parochial altruism and war. Science, 318: 636–640.Google Scholar
Clutton-Brock, T. H. (2016) Mammal Societies. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.Google Scholar
Clutton-Brock, T. H., Brotherton, P. N. M., Russell, A. F. et al. (2001) Cooperation, control and concession in meerkat groups. Science, 291: 478–481.Google Scholar
Clutton-Brock, T. H., Hodge, S. J., Flower, T. P., Spong, G. F., and Young, A. J. (2010) Adaptive suppression of subordinate reproduction in cooperative mammals. American Naturalist, 176: 664–673.Google Scholar
Cockburn, A. (2006) Prevalence of different modes of parental care in birds. Proceedings of the Royal Society London B Biological Science, 273: 1375–1383.Google Scholar
Cooney, R., and Bennett, N. C. (2000) Inbreeding avoidance and reproductive skew in a cooperative mammal. Proceedings of the Royal Society London B Biological Science, 267: 801–806.Google Scholar
Courchamp, F., Rasmussen, G. S. A., and MacDonald, D. W. (2002) Small pack size imposes a trade-off between hunting and pup-guarding in the painted hunting dog Lycaon pictus. Behavioral Ecology, 13: 20–27.Google Scholar
Covas, R., and Doutrelant, C. (2018) The sexual and social benefits of cooperation in animals. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 34: 112–120.Google Scholar
Crofoot, M. C. (2013) The cost of defeat: Capuchin groups travel further, faster and later after losing conflicts with neighbors. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 152(1): 79–85, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.22330.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Davies, N. B. (2000) Cuckoos, Cowbirds and Other Cheats. London: T and AD Poyser Ltd.Google Scholar
Dickinson, J. L., Ferree, E. D., Stern, C. A., Swift, R., and Zuckerberg, B. (2014) Delayed dispersal in western bluebirds: Teasing apart the importance of resources and parents. Behavioral Ecology, 25: 843–851.Google Scholar
Drummond, H. (2006) Dominance in vertebrate broods and litters. Quarterly Review of Biology, 81: 3–32.Google Scholar
Ekman, J., Eggers, S., and Griesser, M. (2002) Fighting to stay: The role of sibling rivalry for delayed dispersal. Animal Behaviour, 64: 453–459.Google Scholar
Ekman, J., and Griesser, M. (2002) Why offspring delay dispersal: Experimental evidence for a role of parental tolerance. Proceedings of the Royal Society London B Biological Science, 269: 1709–1713.Google Scholar
Elgar, M. A. (1989) Predator vigilance and group size in mammals and birds – A critical review of the evidence. Biology Review, 64: 13–33.Google Scholar
Emlen, S. T. (1988) The role of kinship in helping decisions among white-fronted bee-eaters. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 23: 305–315.Google Scholar
Esteban, J., and Ray, D. (2001) Collective action and the group size paradox. American Political Science Review, 95: 663–672.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gavrilets, S. (2015) The collective action problem in heterogeneous groups. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B, 370: 20150016.Google Scholar
Golabek, K. A., Ridley, A. R., and Radford, A. N. (2012) Food availability affects strength of seasonal territorial behaviour in a cooperatively breeding bird. Animal Behaviour, 83: 613–619.Google Scholar
Goldstein, J. M., Woolfenden, G. E., and Hailman, J. P. (1998) A same-sex stepparent shortens a prebreeder’s duration on the natal territory: Tests of two hypotheses in Florida scrub-jays. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 44: 15–22.Google Scholar
Griesser, M., Nystrand, M., and Ekman, J. (2006) Reduced mortality selects for family cohesion in a social species. Proceedings of the Royal Society London B Biological Science, 273: 1881–1886.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Groenewoud, F., Kingma, S. A., Hammers, M., Dugdale, H. L., Burke, T., Richardson, D. S., and Komdeur, J. (2018) Subordinate females in the cooperatively breeding Seychelles warbler obtain direct benefits by joining unrelated groups. Journal of Animal Ecology, 87: 1251–1263.Google Scholar
Hamilton, W. D. (1964) The genetical evolution of social behavior I. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 7: 1–16.Google Scholar
Hillegas, M. A., Waterman, J. M., and Roth, J. D. (2008) The influence of sex and sociality on parasite loads in an African ground squirrel. Behavioral Ecology, 19: 1006–1011.Google Scholar
Hollén, L. I., Bell, M. B.V., and Radford, A. N. (2008) Cooperative sentinel calling? Foragers gain increased biomass intake. Current Biology, 18: 576–579, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2008.02.078.Google Scholar
Humphries, D. (2013) The mechanisms and function of social recognition in the cooperatively breeding southern pied babler, Turdoides bicolor. PhD thesis, University of Western Australia.Google Scholar
Keynan, O., and Ridley, A. R. (2016) Component, group and demographic Allee effects in a cooperatively breeding bird species, the Arabian babbler (Turdoides squamiceps). Oecologia, 182: 153–161.Google Scholar
Koenig, W. D., and Dickinson, J. L. (2016) Cooperative Breeding in Vertebrates: Studies of Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kokko, H., and Ekman, J. (2002) Delayed dispersal as a route of breeding: Territorial inheritance, safe havens, and ecological constraints. American Naturalist, 160: 468–484.Google Scholar
Kokko, H., and Johnstone, R. (1999) Social queuing in animal societies: A dynamic model of reproductive skew. Proceedings of the Royal Society London B Biological Science, 266: 571–578.Google Scholar
Komdeur, J. (1992) Importance of habitat saturation and territory quality for the evolution of cooperative breeding in the Seychelles Warbler. Nature, 358: 493–495.Google Scholar
Lundy, K. J., Parker, P. G., and Zahavi, A. (1998) Reproduction by subordinates in cooperatively breeding Arabian babblers is uncommon but predictable. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 43: 173–180.Google Scholar
Macedo, R. H., and DuVal, E. H. (2018) Friend or foe? The dynamics of social life. Animal Behaviour, 143: 139–143.Google Scholar
Majolo, B., de Bortoli, V. A., and Lehmann, J. (2016) The effect of intergroup competition on intragroup affiliation in primates. Animal Behaviour, 114: 13–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mirville, M. O. (2018) The causes and consequences of intergroup interactions in mountain gorillas (Gorillia beringei beringei). PhD thesis, University of Western Australia.Google Scholar
Mirville, M. O., Ridley, A. R., Samedi, J. P. M., Vecellio, V., Ndagijimana, F., Stoinski, T. S., and Grueter, C. C. (2018) Factors influencing individual participation during intergroup interactions in mountain gorillas. Animal Behaviour, 144: 75–86.Google Scholar
Moehlman, P. D. (1979) Jackal helpers and pup survival. Nature, 277: 382–383.Google Scholar
Morales, J., and Velando, A. (2013) Signals in family groups. Animal Behaviour, 86: 11–16.Google Scholar
Nelson-Flower, M. J., Hockey, P. A. R., O’Ryan, C., Raihani, N. J., du Plessis, M. A., and Ridley, A. R. (2011) Monogamous dominant pairs monopolize reproduction in the cooperatively breeding pied babbler. Behavioral Ecology, 22: 559–565.Google Scholar
Nelson-Flower, M. J., Hockey, P. A. R., O’Ryan, C., and Ridley, A. R. (2012) Inbreeding avoidance mechanisms: Dispersal dynamics in cooperatively breeding southern pied babblers. Journal of Animal Ecology, 81: 876–883.Google Scholar
Nelson-Flower, M. J., Hockey, P. A. R., O’Ryan, C. et al. (2013) Costly reproductive competition between females in a monogamous cooperatively breeding bird. Proceedings of the Royal Society London B Biological Science, 280: 20180728.Google Scholar
Nelson-Flower, M. J., and Ridley, A. R. (2015) Male–male competition is not costly to dominant males in a cooperatively breeding bird. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 69: 1997–2004.Google Scholar
Nelson-Flower, M. J., and Ridley, A. R. (2016) Nepotism and subordinate tenure in a cooperative breeder. Biology Letters, 12: 20160365.Google Scholar
Nelson‐Flower, M. J., Flower, T. P., and Ridley, A. R. (2018b) Sex differences in the drivers of reproductive skew in a cooperative breeder. Molecular Ecology 27: 2435–2446.Google Scholar
Nelson-Flower, M. J., Wiley, E. M., Flower, T. P., and Ridley, A. R. (2018a) Individual dispersal delays in a cooperative breeder: Ecological constraints, the benefits of philopatry and the social queue for dominance. Journal of Animal Ecology, 87: 1227–1238.Google Scholar
Nunn, C. L. (2000) Collective benefits, free-riders, and male extra-group conflict. In Kappeler, P. M., ed., Primate Males: Causes and Consequences of Variation in Group Composition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 192–204.Google Scholar
Olson, M. (1965) The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Packer, C., and Pusey, A. (1983) Adaptations of female lions to infanticide by incoming males. American Naturalist, 121: 716–728.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peña, J., and Nöldeke, G. (2018) Group size effects in social evolution. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 457: 211–220.Google Scholar
Radford, A. N. (2008) Duration and outcome of intergroup conflict influences intragroup affiliative behaviour. Proceedings of the Royal Society London B Biological Science, 275: 2787–2791.Google Scholar
Raihani, N. J., Nelson-Flower, M. J., Golabek, K. A., and Ridley, A. R. (2010) Routes to breeding in cooperatively breeding pied babblers Turdoides bicolor. Journal of Avian Biology, 41: 681–686.Google Scholar
Raihani, N. J. and Ridley, A. R. (2007) Adult vocalizations during provisioning: Offspring response and postfledging benefits in wild pied babblers. Animal Behaviour, 74(5): 1303–1309, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2007.02.025.Google Scholar
Reeve, H. K., Emlen, S. T., and Keller, L. (1998) Reproductive sharing in animal societies: Reproductive incentives or incomplete control by dominant breeders. Behavioral Ecology, 9: 267–278.Google Scholar
Ridley, A. R. (2012) Invading together: The benefits of coalition dispersal in a cooperative bird. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 66: 77–83.Google Scholar
Ridley, A. R. (2016) Southern pied babblers: The dynamics of conflict and cooperation in a group-living society. In Koenig, W. D., and Dickinson, J. L., eds., Cooperative Breeding in Vertebrates: Studies in Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 115–132.Google Scholar
Ridley, A. R., Nelson-Flower, M. J., and Thompson, A. M. (2013) Is sentinel behavior safe? An experimental investigation. Animal Behaviour, 85: 137–142.Google Scholar
Ridley, A. R., and Raihani, N. J. (2007a) Facultative response to a kleptoparasite by the cooperatively breeding pied babbler. Behavioral Ecology, 18: 324–330.Google Scholar
Ridley, A. R., and Raihani, N. J. (2007b) Variable postfledging care in a cooperative bird: Causes and consequences. Behavioral Ecology, 18: 994–1000.Google Scholar
Ridley, A. R., Raihani, N. J., and Nelson-Flower, M. J. (2008) The cost of being alone: The fate of floaters in a population of cooperatively breeding pied babblers Turdoides bicolor. Journal of Avian Biology, 39: 389–392.Google Scholar
Ridley, A. R., and van den Huevel, I. M. (2012) Is there a difference in reproductive performance between cooperative and non-cooperative species? A southern African comparison. Behaviour, 149: 821–848.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ridley, A. R., and Thompson, A. M. (2012) Heterospecific egg destruction by wattled starlings and the impact on pied babbler reproductive success. Ostrich, 82: 201–205.Google Scholar
Riehl, C. (2013) Evolutionary routes to non-kin cooperative breeding in birds. Proceedings of the Royal Society London B Biological Science, 280: 20131445.Google Scholar
Rusch, H. (2014) The evolutionary interplay of intergroup conflict and altruism in humans: A review of parochial altruism theory and prospects for its extension. Proceedings of the Royal Society London B Biological Science, 281: 20141539.Google Scholar
van Schaik, C. P., and Janson, C. H. (2000) Infanticide by Males and Its Implications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shen, S. F., Akçay, E., and Rubenstein, D. R. (2014) Group size and social conflict in complex societies. American Naturalist, 183: 301–310.Google Scholar
Shen, S. F., Emlen, S. T., Koenig, W. D., and Rubenstein, D. R. (2017) The ecology of cooperative breeding behaviour. Ecology Letters, 20: 708–720.Google Scholar
Skutch, A. F. (1935) Helpers at the nest. Auk, 52: 257–273.Google Scholar
Strong, M. J., Sherman, B. L., and Riehl, C. (2017) Home field advantage, not group size, predicts outcome of intergroup conflicts in a social bird. Animal Behaviour, 143: 205–213.Google Scholar
Thompson, A. M., Raihani, N. J., Hockey, P. A. R., Britton, A., Finch, F. M., and Ridley, A. R. (2013) The influence of fledgling location on adult provisioning: A test of the blackmail hypothesis. Proceedings of the Royal Society London B Biological Science, 280: 20130558.Google Scholar
Thompson, F. J., Marshall, H. H., Vitikainen, E. I. K., and Cant, M. A. (2017) Causes and consequences of intergroup conflict in cooperative banded mongooses. Animal Behaviour, 126: 31–40.Google Scholar
Vehrencamp, S. L. (1983) A model for the evolution of despotic versus egalitarian societies. Animal Behaviour, 31: 667–682.Google Scholar
Wiley, E. M., and Ridley, A. R. (2018) The benefits of pair bond tenure in the cooperatively breeding pied babbler (Turdoides bicolor). Ecology and Evolution, 8: 7178–7185.Google Scholar
Willems, E. P., Hellriegel, B., and van Schaik, C. P. (2013) The collective action problem in primate territory economics. Proceedings of the Royal Society London B Biological Science, 280: 20130081.Google Scholar
Wittig, R. M., Crockford, C., Lehmann, J., Whitten, P. L., Seyfarth, R. M., and Cheney, D. L. (2008) Focused grooming networks and stress alleviation in wild female baboons. Hormones and Behavior, 54: 170–177.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×