Neuroethology Of The Colonial Mind Ecological And Evolutionary Context Of Social Brains

Animal groups often display striking collective organization, which relies on social interactions. These interactions require neural substrates supporting the exchange of information among individuals and the processing of this information. The social brain hypothesis, suggested from neuroanatomical findings in primates, posits that increasing levels of sociality involve a higher investment in neural tissue to cope with social information. However, distributed cognition and swarm intelligence might alleviate the cognitive load on the individuals, and potentially reduce their neural requirements. Research on social insects, which are an exemplar of collective action, has so far produced mixed results. Individual cognition and collective action have received a lot of attention, and much progress has been done in each of those fields; however, much less is understood about how the two interact. Our goal is to aggregate theoretical and experimental research exploring the links between the complexity of individual and collective behaviors. Experimental research testing the social brain hypothesis showed little support for a general explanation across the animal kingdom. The relationship between the cognitive abilities of animals and their social interactions are much more complex than previously thought, and tackling this problem requires a better knowledge of the fundamental mechanisms underpinning socio-cognitive tasks. What is the information used by the animals during social interactions? How much information is necessary? How many neurons and which neural circuits are required for processing this information? What neural connections are important? Do these social interactions involve memory formation? How do the cognitive requirements and neural circuits vary between group members? Answering these questions will bring considerable insights into the cognitive complexity involved for social and collective behaviors. It will also advance our understanding of inter-individual cognitive variability and division of labor in most socially advanced species. This Research Topic will be a unique forum for researchers from different fields (neurogenetics, neuro-ethology, evolutionary ecology, cognitive ecology, collective animal behavior, computational modeling) working on different species to present up to date advances on the physiological correlates of social behavior and delineate future directions for the field of social neuroethology. We welcome contributions on any aspect of the cognitive requirements of social and collective behaviors, from molecular, cellular, and circuit level approaches to how individuals contribute to group action at the behavioral level. Specific areas of interest include, but are not limited to, studies on the neural underpinnings of division of labor, neuromodulation or neurogenetics of social behaviors, the neural circuits and neuroanatomical basis of group action, and how social signals affect learning and behavior. We encourage submissions that present original research and review evidence or compare data from multiple species. We hope to include work from different disciplines and on a wide range of species, including model, non-model, and wild animals, with the aim of gaining insight into the patterns of neural investment in individual cognition

This handbook lays out the science behind how animals think, remember, create, calculate, and remember. It provides concise overviews on major areas of study such as animal communication and language, memory and recall, social cognition, social learning and teaching, numerical and quantitative abilities, as well as innovation and problem solving. The chapters also explore more nuanced topics in greater detail, showing how the research was conducted and how it can be used for further study. The authors range from academics working in renowned university departments to those from research institutions and practitioners in zoos. The volume encompasses a wide variety of species, ensuring the breadth of the field is explored.

A comprehensive, multi-author treatise on the social insects of the world, with some auxiliary attention to such adjacent topics as subsocial insects and social arachnids. The work is to serve as a very convenient, yet authoritative reference work on the biology and systematics of social insects of the world. This is a project of the International Union for the Study of Social Insects (IUSSI), the worldwide organizing body for the scientific study of social insects.

Although there is extensive literature in the field of behavioral ecology that attempts to explain foraging of individuals, social foraging--the ways in which animals search and compete for food in groups--has been relatively neglected. This book redresses that situation by providing both a synthesis of the existing literature and a new theory of social foraging. Giraldeau and Caraco develop models informed by game theory that offer a new framework for analysis. Social Foraging Theory contains the most comprehensive theoretical approach to its subject, coupled with quantitative methods that will underpin future work in the field. The new models and approaches that are outlined here will encourage new research directions and applications. To date, the analysis of social foraging has lacked unifying themes, clear recognition of the problems inherent in the study of social foraging, and consistent interaction between theory and experiments. This book identifies social foraging as an economic interaction between the actions of individuals and those of other foragers. This interdependence raises complex questions about the size of foraging groups, the diversity of resources used, and the propensity of group members to exploit each other or forage cooperatively. The models developed in the book will allow researchers to test their own approaches and predictions. Many years in development, Social Foraging Theory will interest researchers and graduate students in such areas as behavioral ecology, population ecology, evolutionary biology, and wildlife management.

First book to outline the fundamental principles of social evolution underlying the stunning diversity of social systems and behaviours.

This volume aims to introduce organizational researchers and practitioners to the role of neuroscience in building theory, research methodologies and practical applications. The volume introduces the field of organizational neuroscience and explores its influence on topics such as leadership, ethics and moral reasoning.

This volume brings together leading experts in comparative and evolutionary psychology. Top scholars summarize the histories and possible futures of their disciplines, and the contribution of each to illuminating the evolutionary forces that give rise to unique abilities in distantly and closely related species.

The role of parents in shaping the characters of their children, the causes of violence and crime, and the roots of personal unhappiness are central to humanity. Like so many fundamental questions about human existence, these issues all relate to behavioural development. In this lucid and accessible book, eminent biologist Professor Sir Patrick Bateson suggests that the nature/nurture dichotomy we often use to think about questions of development in both humans and animals is misleading. Instead, he argues that we should pay attention to whole systems, rather than to simple causes, when trying to understand the complexity of development. In his wide-ranging approach Bateson discusses why so much behaviour appears to be well-designed. He explores issues such as ‘imprinting’ and its importance to the attachment of offspring to their parents; the mutual benefits that characterise communication between parent and offspring; the importance of play in learning how to choose and control the optimal conditions in which to thrive; and the vital function of adaptability in the interplay between development and evolution. Bateson disputes the idea that a simple link can be found between genetics and behaviour. What an individual human or animal does in its life depends on the reciprocal nature of its relationships with the world about it. This knowledge also points to ways in which an animal’s own behaviour can provide the variation that influences the subsequent course of evolution. This has relevance not only for our scientific approaches to the systems of development and evolution, but also on how humans change institutional rules that have become dysfunctional, or design public health measures when mismatches occur between themselves and their environments. It affects how we think about ourselves and our own capacity for change.