Kin In Space. Social Viscosity In A Spatially And Genetically Sub-structured Network

Main Category: Veterinary
Also Included In: Biology / Biochemistry
Article Date: 04 Jun 2008 - 17:00 PDT

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It is a fundamental problem in evolutionary biology to understand how large societies - including humans - can arise and by what means they are stably maintained.

To address this question we explored the role of structural mechanisms in a large Galápagos sea lion colony.

Using modern social network approaches we find that the seemingly chaotic aggregation is well structured into social communities and cliques.

The socio-spatial structure is partly mirrored by genetic relatedness.

We conclude that relatedness can be an emergent property of site fidelity and lead to the evolution of tolerance enabling social preferences and allowing aggressive individuals to live together in densely packed colonies. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Proceedings B is the Royal Society's flagship biological research journal, dedicated to the rapid publication and broad dissemination of high-quality research papers, reviews and comment and reply papers. The scope of journal is diverse and is especially strong in organismal biology.

www.publishing.royalsociety.org/proceedingsb

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