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Cooperation is related to dispersal patterns in Sino-Tibetan populations - PubMed

  • ️Thu Jan 01 2015

Cooperation is related to dispersal patterns in Sino-Tibetan populations

Jia-Jia Wu et al. Nat Commun. 2015.

Abstract

There is growing recognition in both evolutionary biology and anthropology that dispersal is key to establishing patterns of cooperation. However, some models predict that cooperation is more likely to evolve in low dispersal (viscous) populations, while others predict that local competition for resources inhibits cooperation. Sex-biased dispersal and extra-pair mating may also have an effect. Using economic games in Sino-Tibetan populations with strikingly different dispersal patterns, we measure cooperation in 36 villages in southwestern China; we test whether social structure is associated with cooperative behaviour toward those in the neighbourhood. We find that social organization is associated with levels of cooperation in public goods and dictator games and a resource dilemma; people are less cooperative towards other villagers in communities where dispersal by both sexes is low. This supports the view that dispersal for marriage played an important role in the evolution of large-scale cooperation in human society.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Proportion of women and men born in the village they are living in for communities of different dispersal norms.

A total 9% of women in low FD (female dispersal) villages were born outside of the village, whereas 57% of women in high FD villages moved to another. The proportion of males dispersing is low in all communities. The sample size was, for low FD communities, N=280, 53% male; for high FD communities N=300, 51% male; and for medium FD communities, N=140, 57% male.

Figure 2
Figure 2. Relative average individual donations in the DG and the PGG and tea taken in the RDG for different ethnic groups.

Using linear regression for DG (N=360) (a) and PGG (N=720) (b) and Poisson regression for RDG (N=561) (c) controlled for age and sex, with patrilocal-Pumi (PumiP) as reference. Each bar represents the value relative to the patrilocal-Pumi with age and sex controlled for. Green bars, high FD; blue bars filled with dots, medium FD; red bars filled with backslash, low FD. Error bars indicate the standard error from the mean. Note that high values in the RDG game denote selfishness (taking more tea from the public pot), whereas low values indicate selfishness (less dictator giving and public goods contribution) in the PGG and DG.

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