Animal Behavior Cooperation

Cooperation

an outcome in which two or more interacting individuals receive a net benefit from their joint actions

When to be cooperate?

Immediate cost of not cooperating is high, not cooperating long term is costly others may stop cooperating with you

Reciprocal altruism

altruistic exchange between individuals such that an altruistic exchange by 1 animal toward another is returned by an altruistic exchange by animal 2 toward animal 1

Allogrooming

grooming of another individual

Game Theory

a mathematical tool, when the payoff that an individual receives for undertaking an action is dependent upon the behavioral response of others, do they cooperate or defect?

Prisoner’s Dilemma

a scenario in which two players can either cooperate or defect where:

1.Payoff for single player defecting is larger than payoff for both cooperating

2.Moderate cost for mutual defection

3.Very large cost for lone cooperator

T>R>P>S

Strats

Simple - always cooperate or defect

Complex - vindictive and Guilt

Evolutionary Stable Strat (EES)

once adopted by a population will not be invaded or replaced with a new, rare strat

Tit for Tat

a solution to the prisoner’s dilemma in which each player obeys a set of rules about how to react to the other player’s actions

Byproduct mutualism

when cooperation evolves as a consequence of the fact that the cost of not cooperating is so high that individuals will experience a huge and immediate penalty for not doing so

Evolve in harsh environments

Does not require individual recognition