Mathematical Sciences: Collaborative Research on CooperationAmong Animals: Mutualism Versus Reciprocity

数学科学：动物间合作的协作研究：互惠与互惠

• 批准号: 9626609
• 负责人: Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
• 金额: $ 7万
• 依托单位: Florida State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1996
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1996-08-15 至 2000-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9626609&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Mathematical; Sciences; Collaborative; Research; CooperationAmong

Mesterton-Gibbons 9626609 The investigators use evolutionary game theory to study cooperative behavior among animals. They work toward a general theory that categorizes cooperative behavior in nature as kin-selected behavior, group-selected behavior, byproduct mutualism, or reciprocal altruism. In pursuit of this goal, their investigation focuses on cooperative behaviors that can be excluded on a priori grounds from the first two categories mentioned above. Examples of such behaviors are food sharing in ravens and defensive behavior in lions. Accordingly, the investigators focus on reciprocity versus mutualism and develop a mathematical model with the power to discriminate between these two categories of cooperative behavior. The model is important because many examples of reciprocity in nature have been hypothesized, but hardly any have been proven: without such a model, virtually every example is equally interpretable as a case of mutualism. The goal of the study is to determine whether animals can cooperate in nature because they keep score of favors done to -- and favors received from -- specific individuals, or because acting in their long-term self-interest coincides with acting in the best interest of their community, even though they do not keep score. From a purely scientific perspective, an answer to this question will advance current knowledge of animal behavior considerably. From a more utilitarian perspective, even though the study's primary subjects are non-human animals in the wild, the investigators' findings will be relevant to achieving cooperation among humans as well. In particular, the study's findings may help to solve the urgent problem of the commons, i.e., the problem of designing cooperative social structures for sustainable management of the global environment.

Mesterton-Gibbons 9626609 研究人员使用进化博弈论来研究动物之间的合作行为。 他们致力于一个一般理论，将自然界中的合作行为分为亲属选择行为、群体选择行为、副产品互惠主义或互惠利他主义。 为了实现这一目标，他们的研究集中在合作行为，可以排除在先验的理由从上述前两类。 这种行为的例子是乌鸦的食物分享和狮子的防御行为。 因此，研究人员专注于互惠与互利，并开发了一个数学模型，该模型具有区分这两类合作行为的能力。 这个模型很重要，因为自然界中有许多互惠的例子被假设，但几乎没有一个被证明：没有这样一个模型，几乎每个例子都可以同样地解释为互惠的情况。 这项研究的目的是确定动物在自然界中是否能够合作，因为它们会记录对特定个体的帮助和从特定个体那里得到的帮助，或者因为长期的自我利益与社区的最佳利益相一致，即使它们不计分。 从纯科学的角度来看，这个问题的答案将大大推进目前对动物行为的认识。 从更功利的角度来看，尽管这项研究的主要对象是野生的非人类动物，但研究人员的发现也将与实现人类之间的合作有关。 特别是，这项研究的结果可能有助于解决紧迫的公地问题，即，为全球环境的可持续管理设计合作性社会结构的问题。