The Ecology of Social Behavior

The Ecology of Social Behavior explores the relationships between ecology and the origins and maintenance of social behavior. The chapters in this book suggest that a consideration of ecological factors is necessary to any paradigm that tries to explain the origins and maintenance of social behavior. Most also suggest that there are some trade-offs between ecology, genetics, and phylogeny in the development and persistence of specific social systems. The book is organized into five parts. Part I provides an overview of the main themes covered in the present volume. Part II contains papers on ecological interactions, including variation in group sizes of forest primates, group foraging, and the origin of monogamy in mammals and fishes. Part III examines the ecology of social mammals. These include the ecological conditions for philopatry and the relationship of habitat variability to sociality in yellow-bellied marmots. Part IV focuses on the ecology of social birds while Part V deals with the ecology of social arthropods.

Preface

I. Introduction

1. Ecological Trade-offs and Social Behavior

II. Theory of Ecological Interactions

2. Cooperation, Aggression, and the Evolution of Social Behavior

3. The Stable Group and the Determinants of Foraging Group Size

4. Monogamy in Relation to Resources

III. Ecology of Social Mammals

5. Resources and Group Sizes of Primates

6. Resources, Philopatry, and Social Interactions among Mammals

7. Resources and Social Organization of Ground-Dwelling Squirrels

8. Social Systems, Resources, and Phylogenetic Inertia: an Experimental Test and Its Limitations

IV. Ecology of Social Birds

9. Ideal Free Coloniality in the Swallows

10. Territory Quality: Key Determinant of Fitness in the Group-Living Green Woodhoopoe

11. Resource and Climatic Variability: Influences on Sociality of Two Southwestern Corvids

12. Food Sharing in the Raven, Corvus corax

V. Ecology of Social Arthropods

13. Social Competition under Mandatory Group Life

14. Relationships between Ecology and Social Behavior in Cockroaches

15. Risk Sensitivity and Foraging in Colonial Spiders

16. Resource Inheritance in Social Evolution from Termites to Man

Index