Mongoose Markets: The Provision and Value of Public Goods

Mongoose 市场：公共产品的提供和价值

• 批准号: NE/X000362/1
• 负责人: Andrew Radford
• 金额: $ 82.25万
• 依托单位: University of Bristol
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FX000362%2F1
• 关键词: Mongoose; Markets; Provision; Value; Public

The trading of goods and services is a fundamental component of human societies, but we are not unique: throughout the animal world, individuals exchange cooperative acts in 'biological markets'. There are lots of examples of non-human animals trading a commodity for itself (e.g., grooming for grooming) or trading one commodity for another (e.g., grooming for help in fights with others). However, our understanding of this market trading has been limited in two main ways. First, by a focus on situations where just one individual receives a benefit (like when someone carries the shopping of a friend). In reality, many cooperative behaviours have multiple beneficiaries (like when someone picks litter in a park). So-called 'public goods' have profoundly different effects on others and so influence relationships between group members in very different ways. The second limitation is a paucity of experiments in natural conditions, which are crucial to avoid measuring odd effects of captive living and to determine exactly how one behaviour influences another (i.e., causality). In this project, we will investigate social factors driving variation in the provision and value of public goods in biological markets. To do so, we will generate new theory from computational modelling and test the predictions using the cross-commodity trading of sentinel behaviour (acting as a raised look-out) and grooming in a tractable wild population of dwarf mongooses.New theory is needed because existing models of biological markets have generally focused on exclusive partnerships in large populations and the trading of single commodities with individual recipients. We will use cutting-edge methods to model the more common scenario where different commodities (including public goods) are exchanged in small family groups where groupmates with non-exclusive friendships repeatedly interact with one another. Dwarf mongooses, Africa's smallest carnivore, are ideal for the testing of our predictions for several reasons. Groups comprise 5-30 individuals who sleep in a burrow, forage and travel together within a shared territory. Throughout the day, all adults act as sentinels - a cooperative act of public good because the individual suspends foraging, adopts a raised position to scan for danger and provides vocal information about danger to all groupmates - and then groupmates groom one another at the burrow before bedtime. Grooming is important both to reduce ectoparasites living in their fur and to maintain social relationships. We have studied these charismatic creatures for over a decade, so have huge amounts of data (from 81 group-years) on sentinel contributions, grooming patterns and the lives of over 200 individuals. Moreover, we have habituated the study population to our close presence, which enables us to collect body-mass data and run experiments (e.g., manipulations of grooming, perceived sentinel contributions and predation risk) in natural conditions.By developing and testing new theory with both long-term data and the results of field experiments, we will determine how (a) the provision of public goods is influenced by receipt of a different commodity and competition among providers, and (b) the value of public goods is affected by their supply and demand. In doing so, we will deepen our understanding of biological markets, group dynamics, cooperation and social evolution, which are topics of interest to a wide range of biologists. Since cooperation and market trading have major interdisciplinary implications, our research will also complement that of anthropologists, psychologists, economists and social scientists. Finally, because helping others is a trait that we admire in family, friends and colleagues, we will use a programme of public engagement activities to enthuse and inform a wider audience about our research on social interactions and the importance of understanding the natural world through blue-skies research.

商品和服务的交易是人类社会的基本组成部分，但我们并不是唯一的：在整个动物世界中，个体在“生物市场”中交换合作行为。有很多非人类动物用一种商品交换自己（例如，梳理毛发换梳理毛发）或用一种商品交换另一种商品（例如，在与他人打架时梳理毛发以换取帮助）的例子。然而，我们对这种市场交易的理解主要局限在两个方面。首先，专注于只有一个人受益的情况（比如当有人帮朋友买东西的时候）。在现实中，许多合作行为都有多个受益者（比如有人在公园里捡垃圾）。所谓的“公共产品”对他人有截然不同的影响，因此以非常不同的方式影响群体成员之间的关系。第二个限制是缺乏自然条件下的实验，这对于避免测量圈养生活的奇怪影响以及准确确定一种行为如何影响另一种行为（即因果关系）至关重要。在这个项目中，我们将研究驱动生物市场中公共产品供应和价值变化的社会因素。为了做到这一点，我们将从计算模型中产生新的理论，并使用哨兵行为（作为一个上升的看守者）的跨商品交易来测试预测，并在一个可管理的野生矮猫鼬种群中进行梳理。需要新的理论，因为现有的生物市场模型一般侧重于大量人口的排他性伙伴关系和与个别接受者进行单一商品的交易。我们将使用先进的方法来模拟更常见的场景，即不同的商品（包括公共产品）在小家庭群体中交换，在小家庭群体中，具有非排他性友谊的群体成员反复相互互动。矮猫鼬，非洲最小的食肉动物，是检验我们预测的理想选择，原因如下。一个群体由5-30个人组成，他们睡在一个洞穴里，在一个共同的领土上一起觅食和旅行。一整天，所有的成年企鹅都扮演着哨兵的角色——这是一种公共利益的合作行为，因为个体暂停觅食，采取一个升高的位置来扫描危险，并向所有的同伴发出危险的声音信息——然后，在睡觉前，群友们在洞穴里互相梳理。梳理毛发对于减少寄生在皮毛上的寄生虫和维持社会关系都很重要。我们研究这些有魅力的生物已经有十多年了，所以有大量的数据（来自81个群体年）关于哨兵的贡献，梳理模式和200多个个体的生活。此外，我们已经让研究人群习惯了我们的近距离存在，这使我们能够收集体重数据并在自然条件下进行实验（例如，操纵梳理，感知哨兵贡献和捕食风险）。通过利用长期数据和实地实验的结果开发和测试新的理论，我们将确定(a)公共产品的提供如何受到接收不同商品和提供者之间竞争的影响，以及(b)公共产品的价值如何受到其供求关系的影响。在此过程中，我们将加深我们对生物市场，群体动力学，合作和社会进化的理解，这是广泛的生物学家感兴趣的主题。由于合作和市场交易具有重要的跨学科意义，我们的研究也将补充人类学家、心理学家、经济学家和社会科学家的研究。最后，因为帮助他人是我们在家人、朋友和同事身上所欣赏的一种品质，我们将利用一个公众参与活动项目，让更多的观众了解我们在社会互动方面的研究，以及通过蓝天研究了解自然世界的重要性。