The evolution of war and peace in animal societies

合作的进化是生物学的重大难题之一，也是目前试图理解复杂生命进化的核心，从复制分子的团队到合作的动物社会。一种主要的理论是，群体之间足够激烈的冲突可以促进他们内部的合作和利他主义。在人类中，合作可能是由于我们的史前祖先之间的激烈战争而产生的，这种模式也被认为可以解释从蚂蚁到黑猩猩等不同动物社会中的合作。然而，大自然也向我们表明，不同群体之间的合作与和平是可能的，无论是在生物系统(如和平的矮黑猩猩、社会变形虫，以及受精卵中的母系和父系基因)中，还是在小规模的人类社会中，通过贸易和技术交流。一个突出的挑战是找出解释群体之间冲突和合作的各种模式的因素，每个群体都由具有不同利益和动机的个人组成。我将使用一种独特的白蚁物种，在这种白蚁物种中，群体既参与致命的战斗，又参与和平融合，以揭示推动战争进化的因素和那些促进和平的因素。结合实验室中谨慎控制的实验和野外自然白蚁群体的观察，我将对旨在解释人类和其他动物中战争与和平模式的假说进行首次测试。首先，我将通过测试(I)财富和不平等，(Ii)贸易的潜力，以及(Iii)共同的敌人，如何在冲突与和平之间改变殖民地，来确定群体间冲突和群体融合的原因。其次，我将确立为个人行为和成功以及群体生产力而战斗和融合的后果。最后，我将开发新的理论，将我的实验结果统一起来，并允许我探索这些因素共同作用的影响，产生可在一系列物种中检验的一般预测。鉴于我们自己的战争与合作的进化史，群体间的冲突与合作具有巨大的生物学和人类利益。我的项目的核心是理论和实验的结合，具有超越生物学的跨学科相关性，特别是在心理学、经济学、社会学和政治学领域。我的研究将提供对压制冲突和促进群体间合作的力量的基本见解。这些见解将是确定群体一级的和平关系和社会融合是否能够促进日益复杂的社会演变的第一步。

The evolution of cooperation is one of the great puzzles of biology and lies at the heart of current attempts to understand the evolution of complex life, from teams of replicating molecules through to cooperative animal societies. One major theory is that sufficiently intense conflict between groups can promote cooperation and altruism within them. In humans, cooperation may have arisen as a consequence of intense warfare among our prehistoric ancestors, a pattern also proposed to explain cooperation in animal societies as diverse as ants and chimpanzees. Yet nature also shows us that cooperation and peace between distinct groups is possible, both in biological systems (as seen in peaceful bonobos, social amoeba, and between maternal and paternal genes in a fertilized egg) and in small-scale human societies, via trade and technological exchange. An outstanding challenge is to identify the factors that explain these varied patterns of conflict and cooperation between groups, each comprised of individuals with different interests and incentives. I will use a uniquely suited termite species, in which colonies engage in both fatal combat and peaceful fusion, to uncover the factors that drive the evolution of war and those that promote peace.Combining carefully controlled experiments in the lab with observations of natural termite colonies in the wild, I will perform the first test of hypotheses proposed to explain patterns of war and peace in humans and other animals. First, I will determine the causes of intergroup conflict and colony fusion by testing how (i) wealth and inequality, (ii) the potential for trade, and (iii) a common enemy, shift colonies between conflict and peace. Second, I will establish the consequences of fighting and fusing for individual behaviour and success, and colony productivity. Finally, I will develop new theory that unites my experimental findings and allows me to explore the effect of these factors acting together, generating general predictions that are testable across a range of species.Intergroup conflict and cooperation are of great biological and human interest, given our own evolutionary history of warfare and cooperation. The combination of theory and experiments at the heart of my project has interdisciplinary relevance beyond biology, particularly in the fields of psychology, economics, sociology, and political science. My research will provide fundamental insights into the forces that suppress conflict and promote cooperation between groups. These insights will be the first step to establishing if peaceful relationships and social integration at the group level can facilitate the evolution of increased social complexity.