PECASE: Toward a Unified Theory of Social Evolution: Reproductive Skew and Aggression in Social Wasps

增加复杂性是进化的中心主题。在这条轨迹上，最近的一步是从独居生活向社会生活的转变。这种转变产生了巨大的后果；可以说，几乎所有的陆地生态系统都以社会性物种为主。因此，理解社会性是如何进化的是非常重要的。历史上有两种理论体系适用；一门研究亲缘群体内部社会性的进化，另一门研究非亲缘群体之间的社会性。本研究中提出的“生殖倾斜”理论有可能提供一种与这两种情况相关的社会进化的一般理论。歪斜理论认为，社会中的主导个体必须向从属个体提供激励，以确保他们的合作和帮助。生态因素结合个体间的遗传相似性决定了合作的回报，因此定义了最优的“繁殖偏态”（一个或几个个体直接选择（生产）的程度）。这项研究将继续发展这一理论，并以一种理想的研究物种——群居黄蜂（Polistes fuscatus）进行测试。对自然界中群居黄蜂的调查将测量生态和遗传相似性因素，同时观察繁殖偏度，以确定是否与最优偏度理论的预测在数量上一致。这个项目还包括一个很大的教育组成部分，旨在为未来的行为科学家提供理论和实证技能。此外，还将建立一个主要的新网站，使学生能够更好地与理论家和经验行为生物学家交流。利用昆虫模型研究社会性为该领域提供了关键贡献，包括亲缘选择理论。亲缘选择理论改变了我们对社会性动物的看法，解决了自达尔文时代以来就存在的两难困境，并改变了一些人类学家对人类社会性的看法。这项研究有可能发展出一种更普遍的社会行为进化理论，并具有广泛应用的前景。

Increasing complexity is a central theme of evolution. The most recent step in this trajectory is the transition from solitary to social life. This transition resulted in enormous consequences; it can be said that nearly all land ecosystems are dominated by social species. It is of great importance, then, to understand how sociality evolved. Historically there have been two bodies of theory that apply; one deals with the evolution of sociality within kin groups and the other with sociality among nonrelatives. The "reproductive skew" theory addressed in this research has the potential to provide a general theory of social evolution that is relevant in both situations. Skew theory holds that a dominant individual within a society must provide incentives to subordinate individuals in order to secure their cooperation and assistance. Ecological factors combined with the genetic similarity among individuals dictate the payoffs for cooperation and therefore define the optimal "reproductive skew" (the degree to which one or a few individuals co-opt direct (production). This research will continue the development of the theory and test it with an ideal study species, a social wasp, Polistes fuscatus. Investigations of the social wasp in nature will measure the ecological and genetic similarity factors, along with observation of reproductive skew to determine if there is a quantitative agreement with the predictions of optimal skew theory. This project also involves a large educational component designed to provide tomorrow''s behavioral scientists with both theoretical and empirical skills. In addition, a major new Web site will be created to better enable students to communicate with theorists and empirical behavioral biologists. The study of sociality using insect models has provided pivotal contributions to the field, including kin-selection theory. Kin-selection theory changed the way we think about social animals, solved a dilemma that had existed since Darwin''s time and changed the way that some anthropologists think about human sociality. This research has the potential to develop an even more general theory of how social behavior evolved and holds considerable promise for broad application.