The ecology and evolution of social groups and metapopulations

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Individual organisms often form part of social groups or live in relatively isolated populations. Research in my laboratory seeks to understand why social groups form and how traits that affect population growth, dispersal, and extinction develop in species with subdivided populations. Using a combination of comparative, experimental, and theoretical approaches, and spiders that live in social groups as a model system, we will: (1) Explore why social groups form by testing, in a broad range of organisms, from aphids to wolves, the applicability of mathematical models we have develop to represent the major factors believed to favor group living and cooperation-coping with high mortality or unpredictable environments, accessing prey too large or difficult of single individuals to capture, and outcompeting conspecific groups. We will also develop and test more complex models for spider sociality to illustrate how different environmental factors interact with each other and the organisms to produce social or non-social species under different circumstances. (2) Seek to understand how population subdivision affects the dynamics of growth, extinction, and dispersal of local populations by developing computer models that mimic organisms with genes that determine their fecundity and the proportion of sons and daughters they produce, both traits that should influence the dynamics of local populations. We will test the predictions of these models in manipulative field experiments and comparative studies across species of social spiders with different degrees of population subdivision. Addressing these questions will allow us to better appreciate how nature works, why we and other animals are social, and what factors will influence growth, dispersal, and extinction in subdivided populations, as are those of many parasites and pathogens.