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Social Structure and Individual Ontogenies: Problems of Description, Mechanism, and Evolution

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Perspectives in Ethology

Abstract

An old problem in the study of societies is the relationship between social structure and the development of individuals. Societies generally have a more or less stable distribution of individuals among social positions in spite of the passage of successive generations of individuals. For biologists, the problem of the relationships between individual and society has three aspects: the quantitative description of individuals’ movements through successive social positions; the mechanisms that regulate this movement; and the evolution of these regulatory mechanisms.

The concept of “ontogenetic trajectories” can serve as a basis for describing the movements of individuals through social positions. Actual measurements of the age-dependent rates of transitions of individuals from one social position to another should soon permit the first relatively complete descriptions of complex animal societies. Ontogenetic trajectories raise questions about the mechanisms that generate stable distributions of individuals among social positions. In some cases, there is evidence of feedback control in the form of inhibition by individuals in a later social position on the development of individuals in earlier positions. In other cases, stable social structure might result from relatively constant demographic conditions and developmental schedules.

The evolution of ontogenetic trajectories, in particular ones that involve substantial deferment of successful reproduction, is related to the evolution of life-history strategies. Several recurring forms of social structure in birds and animals, in particular polygyny and stable groups of cooperating adults with one reproductive pair, raise similar questions about the evolution of maturational controls that result in ontogenetic trajectories with delayed reproduction. Some simple calculations can show that the evolution of delayed reproduction depends on the consequences of early reproduction for subsequent survival and fecundity. In the end, explanations for the evolution of polygyny and cooperative groups will need to incorporate ecological explanations for the adaptedness of ontogenies with delayed reproduction, rather than present delayed reproduction as a secondary consequence of the social structure.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Zoology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 27514, USA

    R. Haven Wiley

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  1. Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England

    Paul Patrick Gordon Bateson

  2. Department of Zoology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA

    Peter H. Klopfer

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Wiley, R.H. (1981). Social Structure and Individual Ontogenies: Problems of Description, Mechanism, and Evolution. In: Bateson, P.P.G., Klopfer, P.H. (eds) Perspectives in Ethology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-7575-7_5

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