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A positive feedback loop between sociality and social competence
Author(s) -
Taborsky Barbara
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
ethology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.739
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1439-0310
pISSN - 0179-1613
DOI - 10.1111/eth.13201
Subject(s) - sociality , trait , social competence , biological dispersal , competence (human resources) , social relation , social psychology , psychology , biology , evolutionary biology , social change , population , sociology , demography , computer science , programming language , economics , economic growth
The social environment of animals influences individual social decisions, which in turn feeds back on the social environment. The two halves of this feedback loop are rarely studied in conjunction. Here, I propose and review evidence for a positive feedback loop between sociality and social competence. Because social competence increases the performance during social encounters of all kinds, positive feedback between selection on social competence and sociality seems plausible. In the first part, I present evidence that social competence is an evolving trait: it exhibits consistent variation between individuals, has fitness consequences and is genetically or non‐genetically transmitted across generations. In the second part, I propose that the feedback loop between sociality and social competence may be mediated by a link to dispersal propensity. I review the available evidence for this possible mechanism: higher social competence and philopatry may be part of the same social phenotype, and in some social species dispersal propensity is heritable. Finally, I discuss the evolutionary consequences of the proposed mechanism for the scenarios that social phenotype is transmitted genetically or plastically across generations.