IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Kitchen, D.M.; Packer, C. | |
| Complexity in Vertebrate Societies | |
| 1999 Book Chapter | |
Our task for this volume was to determine how the most complex and apparently coordinated vertebrate social behaviors conform to this dichotomy of societal evolution. Many vertebrate societies are centered around cooperative breeding, and this pathway apparently leads toward eusociality in the same manner as naked mole-rats, termites and hymenoptera. Because strict eusociality is rare among vertebrates, and the behaviors associated with cooperative breeding systems have been the subject of several recent reviews, we have chosen instead to examine alternative examples of emergent properties in vertebrates. Predator avoidance, food acquisition, and resource competition all provide clear examples of complex, group-level behavior. Can simple rules of individual behavior account for these phenomena? Or do we see signs of a superorganism with near-perfect coordination, altruism, specialized division of labor, and advanced group-level decision-making beyond the sum of its parts? In each case, we characterize the complexity of the behavior, providing a plausible scenario for the evolution of the trait and exploring its maintenance at the observed level of complexity. Where possible, we discuss factors that may have prevented each trait from attaining an even higher level of complexity. |
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