TY - JOUR
T1 - Temporal Structure in Cooperative Interactions
T2 - What Does the Timing of Exploitation Tell Us about Its Cost?
AU - Barker, Jessica L.
AU - Bronstein, Judith L.
N1 - Funding Information:
J. L. Barker was funded by National Institutes of Health grant 5K12GM000708-13. https:// www.nigms.nih.gov/Training/CareerDev/Pages/ TWDInstRes.aspx http://cis.arl.arizona.edu/Pert/perthome. J. L. Bronstein was funded by National Science Foundation grant DEB-1354155. http://www. nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID= 1354155&HistoricalAwards = false. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
PY - 2016/2/3
Y1 - 2016/2/3
N2 - Exploitation in cooperative interactions both within and between species is widespread. Although it is assumed to be costly to be exploited, mechanisms to control exploitation are surprisingly rare, making the persistence of cooperation a fundamental paradox in evolutionary biology and ecology. Focusing on between-species cooperation (mutualism), we hypothesize that the temporal sequence in which exploitation occurs relative to cooperation affects its net costs and argue that this can help explain when and where control mechanisms are observed in nature. Our principal prediction is that when exploitation occurs late relative to cooperation, there should be little selection to limit its effects (analogous to “tolerated theft” in human cooperative groups). Although we focus on cases in which mutualists and exploiters are different individuals (of the same or different species), our inferences can readily be extended to cases in which individuals exhibit mixed cooperative-exploitative strategies. We demonstrate that temporal structure should be considered alongside spatial structure as an important process affecting the evolution of cooperation. We also provide testable predictions to guide future empirical research on interspecific as well as intraspecific cooperation.
AB - Exploitation in cooperative interactions both within and between species is widespread. Although it is assumed to be costly to be exploited, mechanisms to control exploitation are surprisingly rare, making the persistence of cooperation a fundamental paradox in evolutionary biology and ecology. Focusing on between-species cooperation (mutualism), we hypothesize that the temporal sequence in which exploitation occurs relative to cooperation affects its net costs and argue that this can help explain when and where control mechanisms are observed in nature. Our principal prediction is that when exploitation occurs late relative to cooperation, there should be little selection to limit its effects (analogous to “tolerated theft” in human cooperative groups). Although we focus on cases in which mutualists and exploiters are different individuals (of the same or different species), our inferences can readily be extended to cases in which individuals exhibit mixed cooperative-exploitative strategies. We demonstrate that temporal structure should be considered alongside spatial structure as an important process affecting the evolution of cooperation. We also provide testable predictions to guide future empirical research on interspecific as well as intraspecific cooperation.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002371
DO - 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002371
M3 - Article
C2 - 26841169
AN - SCOPUS:84959550689
VL - 14
JO - PLoS Biology
JF - PLoS Biology
SN - 1544-9173
IS - 2
M1 - e1002371
ER -