Fall 2021

Talks are Tuesdays at: 08:00 (PDT), 11:00 (EDT), 17:00 (CEST), 20:30 (IST), 01:00 (Wednesday, AEST)

Raghavendra Gadagkar

Title: Direct Fitness Options for Workers in the Indian Paper Wasp Ropalidia marginata. Recorded Talk.

Date: 07 September 2021

Suggested Readings:

1. Emergence of cooperation and division of labor in the primitively eusocial wasp Ropalidia marginata.

2. Current indirect fitness and future direct fitness are not incompatible.

3. To leave or to stay: direct fitness through natural nest foundation in a primitively eusocial wasp.

Sheng-Feng Shen

Title: Ecological Causes and Consequences of Sociality. Recorded Talk.

Date: 14 September 2021

Suggested Readings:

1. The ecology of cooperative breeding behaviour.

2. Locally-adapted reproductive photoperiodism determines population vulnerability to climate change in burying beetles.

3. A chemically-triggered transition from conflict to cooperation in burying beetles.

Jennifer Smith

Title: Comparative social evolution in mammals. Recorded Talk.

Date: 21 September 2021

Suggested Readings:

1. Split between two worlds: automated sensing reveals links between above- and belowground social networks in a free-living mammal.

2. Leadership in Mammalian Societies: Emergence, Distribution, Power, and Payoff.

3. Observing the unwatchable: Integrating automated-sensing, naturalistic observations, and animal social network analysis in the age of big data.

4. An evolutionary explanation for the female leadership paradox.

Juan Carlos Reboreda

Title: Coevolutionary arms race between a specialist avian brood parasite and its host. Recorded Talk.

Date: 28 September 2021

Suggested Readings:

1. Host-parasite coevolution beyond the nestling stage? Mimicry of host fledglings by the specialist screaming cowbird.

2. Parasite adaptations during the nestling and fledgling stages.

3. Coevolutionary arms race between a specialist brood parasite, the Screaming Cowbird, and its host, the Baywing.

Clint Penick

Title: Dominance hierarchy formation and brain changes in a socially flexible ant. Recorded Talk.

Date: 05 October 2021

Suggested Readings:

1. Reversible plasticity in brain size, behavior, and physiology characterizes caste transitions in a socially flexible ant (Harpegnathos saltator).

2. A larval ‘princess pheromone’ identifies future ant queens based on their juvenile hormone content.

3. A simple behavioral model predicts the emergence of complex animal hierarchies.

Alison Bell

Title: The evolution of family life in sticklebacks. Recorded Talk.

Date: 12 October 2021

Suggested Readings:

1. Neurogenomic insights into paternal care and its relation to territorial aggression.

2. Temporal dynamics of neurogenomic plasticity in response to social interactions in male threespined sticklebacks.

3. Evolution of offspring desertion in a stickleback fish.

Annaliese Beery

Title: Selectivity and sociality: what the nature of a group indicates about the mechanisms that maintain it. Recorded Talk.

Date: 19 October 2021

Suggested Readings:

1. Frank Beach award winner: Neuroendocrinology of group living.

2. Comparative Assessment of Familiarity/Novelty Preferences in Rodents.

3. Comparative role of reward in long-term peer and mate relationships in voles.

Andy Sih

Title: Individual differences in behavior and social dynamics that influence ecologically-important outcomes: 3 case studies. Recorded Talk.

Date: 26 October 2021

Suggested Readings:

1. Counter-culture: Does social learning help or hinder adaptive response to human-induced rapid environmental change?

2. Integrating social networks, animal personalities, movement ecology and parasites: a framework with examples from a lizard.

3. On the importance of individual differences in behavioural skill.

Mini-Symposium on Long-Term Research.

Date: 02 November 2021

Recorded Discussion.

Julia Fischer

Title: Insights into social evolution from baboon studies. Recorded Talk.

Date: 09 November 2021

Suggested Readings:

1. Kin bias and male pair-bond status shape male-male relationships in a multilevel primate society.

2. The natural history of model organisms: Insights into the evolution of social systems and species from baboon studies.

3. Charting the neglected West: The social system of Guinea baboons.

Monique Borgerhoff Mulder

Title: Polygyny, the evolution of a model, and adventures in comparative evolutionary anthropology. Recorded Talk.

Date: 16 November 2021

Suggested Readings:

1. Greater wealth inequality, less polygyny: Rethinking the polygyny threshold model.

2. No evidence that polygynous marriage is a harmful cultural practice in northern Tanzania.

3. Unpacking Mating Success and Testing Bateman’s Principles in a Human Population.

Wolfgang Goymann

Title: Competing females and caring males – On the ecology and physiology of a reversal in sex roles. Recorded Talk.

Date: 23 November 2021

Suggested Readings:

1. The evolution of reversed sex roles and classical polyandry: Insights from coucals and other animals.

2. Social monogamy vs. polyandry: ecological factors associated with sex roles in two closely related birds within the same habitat.

3. Progesterone modulates aggression in sex-role reversed African black coucals.

4. Sex-role reversal is reflected in the brain of African black coucals (Centropus grillii).

Hanna Kokko

Title: Good reasons to live shorter lives.

Date: 30 November 2021 (Postponed)

Suggested Readings:

1. The coevolution of lifespan and reversible plasticity.

2. Life history traits as causes or consequences of social behavior: why do cooperative breeders lay small clutches?

3. Adaptation and plasticity in life-history theory: How to derive predictions.

Noa Pinter-Wollman

Title: Spatial and ecological features affect animal movements and interactions. Recorded Talk.

Date: 07 December 2021

Suggested Readings:

1. Nest architecture shapes the collective behaviour of harvester ants.

2. Can multilayer networks advance animal behavior research?

3. Interdisciplinary approaches for uncovering the impacts of architecture on collective behaviour.

Valeria Romano

Title: Social networks and cultural evolution in prehistoric hunter-gatherers.

Date: 14 December 2021

Suggested Readings:

1. A multilevel analytical framework for studying cultural evolution in prehistoric hunter–gatherer societies.

2. Stemming the flow, information, infection and social evolution.

3. Social transmission in networks: global efficiency peaks with intermediate levels of modularity.