scholarly journals Cultural linkage: the influence of package transmission on cultural dynamics

2019 ◽  
Vol 286 (1916) ◽  
pp. 20191951 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Justin Yeh ◽  
Laurel Fogarty ◽  
Anne Kandler
Keyword(s):  
Causal Reasoning ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Intermediate Frequency ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Physical Linkage ◽  
Cultural Traits ◽  
Linkage Of Genes ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary

Many cultural traits are not transmitted independently, but together as a package. This can happen because, for example, media may store information together making it more likely to be transmitted together, or through cognitive mechanisms such as causal reasoning. Evolutionary biology suggests that physical linkage of genes (being on the same chromosome) allows neutral and maladaptive genes to spread by hitchhiking on adaptive genes, while the pairwise difference between neutral genes is unaffected. Whether packaging may lead to similar dynamics in cultural evolution is unclear. To understand the effect of cultural packages on cultural evolutionary dynamics, we built an agent-based simulation that allows links to form and break between cultural traits. During transmission, one trait and others that are directly or indirectly connected to it are transmitted together in a package. We compare variation in cultural traits between different rates of link formation and breakage and find that an intermediate frequency of links can lower cultural diversity, which can be misinterpreted as a signature of payoff bias or conformity. Further, cultural hitchhiking can occur when links are common.

scholarly journals Cultural Evolution of Genetic Heritability

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-147
Author(s):  
Ryutaro Uchiyama ◽  
Rachel Spicer ◽  
Michael Muthukrishna
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Behavioral Genetics ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Genetic Effects ◽  
Genetic Heritability ◽  
Innovation And Diffusion ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary ◽  
The Life Course

Abstract Behavioral genetics and cultural evolution have both revolutionized our understanding of human behavior—largely independent of each other. Here we reconcile these two fields under a dual inheritance framework, offering a more nuanced understanding of the interaction between genes and culture. Going beyond typical analyses of gene–environment interactions, we describe the cultural dynamics that shape these interactions by shaping the environment and population structure. A cultural evolutionary approach can explain, for example, how factors such as rates of innovation and diffusion, density of cultural sub-groups, and tolerance for behavioral diversity impact heritability estimates, thus yielding predictions for different social contexts. Moreover, when cumulative culture functionally overlaps with genes, genetic effects become masked, unmasked, or even reversed, and the causal effects of an identified gene become confounded with features of the cultural environment. The manner of confounding is specific to a particular society at a particular time, but a WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) sampling problem obscures this boundedness. Cultural evolutionary dynamics are typically missing from models of gene-to-phenotype causality, hindering generalizability of genetic effects across societies and across time. We lay out a reconciled framework and use it to predict the ways in which heritability should differ between societies, between socioeconomic levels and other groupings within some societies but not others, and over the life course. An integrated cultural evolutionary behavioral genetic approach cuts through the nature–nurture debate and helps resolve controversies in topics such as IQ.

scholarly journals Notes on narrative, cognition, and cultural evolution

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 542-561
Author(s):  
Marina Grishakova ◽  
Siim Sorokin
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Mass Communication ◽  
Cognitive Mapping ◽  
Symbolic Representation ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
Symbolic Representations ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Ubiquity Hypothesis ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary

Drawing on non-Darwinian cultural-evolutionary approaches, the paper develops a broad, non-representational perspective on narrative, necessary to account for the narrative “ubiquity” hypothesis. It considers narrativity as a feature of intelligent behaviour and as a formative principle of symbolic representation (“narrative proclivity”). The narrative representation retains a relationship with the “primary” pre-symbolic narrativity of the basic orientational-interpretive (semiotic) behaviour affected by perceptually salient objects and “fits” in natural environments. The paper distinguishes between implicit narrativity (as the basic form of perceptual-cognitive mapping) of intelligent behaviour or non-narrative media, and the “narrative” as a symbolic representation. Human perceptual-attentional routines are enhanced by symbolic representations: due to its attention-monitoring and information-gathering function, narrative serves as a cognitive-exploratory tool facilitating cultural dynamics. The rise of new media and mass communication on the Web has thrown the ability of narrative to shape the public sphere through the ongoing process of negotiated sensemaking and interpretation in a particularly sharp relief.

scholarly journals Politeness and reputation in cultural evolution

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Mühlenbernd ◽  
Sławomir Wacewicz ◽  
Przemysław Żywiczyński
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Order Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Stability ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Social Image ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Politeness Strategies ◽  
Higher Order Theory ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary

AbstractPoliteness in conversation is a fascinating aspect of human interaction that directly interfaces language use and human social behavior more generally. We show how game theory, as a higher-order theory of behavior, can provide the tools to understand and model polite behavior. The recently proposed responsibility exchange theory (Chaudhry and Loewenstein in Psychol Rev 126(3):313–344, 2019) describes how the polite communications of thanking and apologizing impact two different types of an agent’s social image: (perceived) warmth and (perceived) competence. Here, we extend this approach in several ways, most importantly by adding a cultural-evolutionary dynamics that makes it possible to investigate the evolutionary stability of politeness strategies. Our analysis shows that in a society of agents who value status-related traits (such as competence) over reciprocity-related traits (such as warmth), both the less and the more polite strategies are maintained in cycles of cultural-evolutionary change.

Physical linkage of genes encoding the lymphocyte adhesion molecules CD2 and its ligand LFA-3

1989 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen F. Kingsmore ◽  
Mark L. Watson ◽  
Walton S. Moseley ◽  
Michael F. Seldin
Keyword(s):  
Adhesion Molecules ◽  
Lymphocyte Adhesion ◽  
Physical Linkage ◽  
Genes Encoding ◽  
Linkage Of Genes

scholarly journals Evolution of correlated complexity in the radically different courtship signals of birds-of-paradise

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell A. Ligon ◽  
Christopher D. Diaz ◽  
Janelle L. Morano ◽  
Jolyon Troscianko ◽  
Martin Stevens ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Functional Integration ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Evolutionary Patterns ◽  
Evolutionary Innovation ◽  
Birds Of Paradise ◽  
Analytical Approaches

Ornaments used in courtship often vary wildly among species, reflecting the evolutionary interplay between mate preference functions and the constraints imposed by natural selection. Consequently, understanding the evolutionary dynamics responsible for ornament diversification has been a longstanding challenge in evolutionary biology. However, comparing radically different ornaments across species, as well as different classes of ornaments within species, is a profound challenge to understanding diversification of sexual signals. Using novel methods and a unique natural history dataset, we explore evolutionary patterns of ornament evolution in a group - the birds-of-paradise - exhibiting dramatic phenotypic diversification widely assumed to be driven by sexual selection. Rather than the tradeoff between ornament types originally envisioned by Darwin and Wallace, we found positive correlations among cross-modal (visual/acoustic) signals indicating functional integration of ornamental traits into a composite unit - the courtship phenotype. Furthermore, given the broad theoretical and empirical support for the idea that systemic robustness - functional overlap and interdependency - promotes evolutionary innovation, we posit that birds-of-paradise have radiated extensively through ornamental phenotype space as a consequence of the robustness in the courtship phenotype that we document at a phylogenetic scale. We suggest that the degree of robustness in courtship phenotypes among taxa can provide new insights into the relative influence of sexual and natural selection on phenotypic radiations.Author SummaryAnimals frequently vary widely in ornamentation, even among closely related species. Understanding the patterns that underlie this variation is a significant challenge, requiring comparisons among drastically different traits - like comparing apples to oranges. Here, we use novel analytical approaches to quantify variation in ornamental diversity and richness across the wildly divergent birds-of-paradise, a textbook example of how sexual selection can profoundly shape organismal phenotypes. We find that color and acoustic complexity, along with behavior and acoustic complexity, are positively correlated across evolutionary time-scales. Positive covariation among ornament classes suggests that selection is acting on correlated suites of traits - a composite courtship phenotype - and that this integration may be partially responsible for the extreme variation we see in birds-of-paradise.

scholarly journals Phenotype bias determines how RNA structures occupy the morphospace of all possible shapes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamaludin Dingle ◽  
Fatme Ghaddar ◽  
Petr Šulc ◽  
Ard A. Louis
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Rna Secondary Structure ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Coarse Grained ◽  
Rna Structures ◽  
Non Coding Rna ◽  
Ultimate Cause ◽  
Uniform Random Sampling ◽  
Bias Versus

The relative prominence of developmental bias versus natural selection is a long standing controversy in evolutionary biology. Here we demonstrate quantitatively that developmental bias is the primary explanation for the occupation of the morphospace of RNA secondary structure (SS) shapes. By using the RNAshapes method to define coarse-grained SS classes, we can directly measure the frequencies that non-coding RNA SS shapes appear in nature. Our main findings are, firstly, that only the most frequent structures appear in nature: The vast majority of possible structures in the morphospace have not yet been explored. Secondly, and perhaps more surprisingly, these frequencies are accurately predicted by the likelihood that structures appear upon uniform random sampling of sequences. The ultimate cause of these patterns is not natural selection, but rather strong phenotype bias in the RNA genotype-phenotype (GP) map, a type of developmental bias that tightly constrains evolutionary dynamics to only act within a reduced subset of structures which are easy to “find”.

scholarly journals PRDM9 Diversity at Fine Geographical Scale Reveals Contrasting Evolutionary Patterns and Functional Constraints in Natural Populations of House Mice

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (8) ◽  
pp. 1686-1700 ◽  
Author(s):  
Covadonga Vara ◽  
Laia Capilla ◽  
Luca Ferretti ◽  
Alice Ledda ◽  
Rosa A Sánchez-Guillén ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reproductive Isolation ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Rapid Evolution ◽  
Natural Populations ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
House Mice ◽  
Functional Constraints ◽  
Evolutionary Patterns ◽  
Data Set

Abstract One of the major challenges in evolutionary biology is the identification of the genetic basis of postzygotic reproductive isolation. Given its pivotal role in this process, here we explore the drivers that may account for the evolutionary dynamics of the PRDM9 gene between continental and island systems of chromosomal variation in house mice. Using a data set of nearly 400 wild-caught mice of Robertsonian systems, we identify the extent of PRDM9 diversity in natural house mouse populations, determine the phylogeography of PRDM9 at a local and global scale based on a new measure of pairwise genetic divergence, and analyze selective constraints. We find 57 newly described PRDM9 variants, this diversity being especially high on Madeira Island, a result that is contrary to the expectations of reduced variation for island populations. Our analysis suggest that the PRDM9 allelic variability observed in Madeira mice might be influenced by the presence of distinct chromosomal fusions resulting from a complex pattern of introgression or multiple colonization events onto the island. Importantly, we detect a significant reduction in the proportion of PRDM9 heterozygotes in Robertsonian mice, which showed a high degree of similarity in the amino acids responsible for protein–DNA binding. Our results suggest that despite the rapid evolution of PRDM9 and the variability detected in natural populations, functional constraints could facilitate the accumulation of allelic combinations that maintain recombination hotspot symmetry. We anticipate that our study will provide the basis for examining the role of different PRDM9 genetic backgrounds in reproductive isolation in natural populations.

scholarly journals Evolutionary dynamics of culturally transmitted, fertility-reducing traits

2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1925) ◽  
pp. 20192468
Author(s):  
Dominik Wodarz ◽  
Shaun Stipp ◽  
David Hirshleifer ◽  
Natalia L. Komarova
Keyword(s):  
Demographic Transition ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Transition Process ◽  
Low Fertility ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Demographic Transitions ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary ◽  
Fertility Traits

Human populations in many countries have undergone a phase of demographic transition, characterized by a major reduction in fertility at a time of increased resource availability. A key stylized fact is that the reduction in fertility is preceded by a reduction in mortality and a consequent increase in population density. Various theories have been proposed to account for the demographic transition process, including maladaptation, increased parental investment in fewer offspring, and cultural evolution. None of these approaches, including formal cultural evolutionary models of the demographic transitions, have addressed a possible direct causal relationship between a reduction in mortality and the subsequent decline in fertility. We provide mathematical models in which low mortality favours the cultural selection of low-fertility traits. This occurs because reduced mortality slows turnover in the model, which allows the cultural transmission advantage of low-fertility traits to outrace their reproductive disadvantage. For mortality to be a crucial determinant of outcome, a cultural transmission bias is required where slow reproducers exert higher social influence. Computer simulations of our models that allow for exogenous variation in the death rate can reproduce the central features of the demographic transition process, including substantial reductions in fertility within only one to three generations. A model assuming continuous evolution of reproduction rates through imitation errors predicts fertility to fall below replacement levels if death rates are sufficiently low. This can potentially explain the very low preferred family sizes in Western Europe.

scholarly journals Sex and Speciation: Drosophila Reproductive Tract Proteins— Twenty Five Years Later

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rama Singh ◽  
Santosh Jagadeeshan
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Reproductive Tract ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Molecular Genetic ◽  
Rapid Evolution ◽  
2D Electrophoresis ◽  
Large Area ◽  
Genomic Studies ◽  
Molecular Genetic Variation ◽  
The Common

The protein electrophoresis revolution, nearly fifty years ago, provided the first glimpse into the nature of molecular genetic variation within and between species and showed that the amount of genetic differences between newly arisen species was minimal. Twenty years later, 2D electrophoresis showed that, in contrast to general gene-enzyme variation, reproductive tract proteins were less polymorphic within species but highly diverged between species. The 2D results were interesting and revolutionary, but somewhat uninterpretable because, at the time, rapid evolution and selective sweeps were not yet part of the common vocabulary of evolutionary biologists. Since then, genomic studies of sex and reproduction-related (SRR) genes have grown rapidly into a large area of research in evolutionary biology and are shedding light on a number of phenomena. Here we review some of the major and current fields of research that have greatly contributed to our understanding of the evolutionary dynamics and importance of SRR genes and genetic systems in understanding reproductive biology and speciation.

scholarly journals How cultural evolution can inform the science of science communication—and vice versa

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Theiss Bendixen
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Real World ◽  
Behavioral Change ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Communication Research ◽  
Science Of Science ◽  
Real World Setting ◽  
Cultural Traits ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary

AbstractCultural evolution research is the study of how cultural traits (e.g., beliefs and behavioral patterns) stabilize, change and diffuse in populations, and why some cultural traits are more “attractive” (i.e., more likely to spread) than others. As such, cultural evolution is highly relevant for the emerging “science of science communication” (SSC) in that it can help organize and guide the study of science communication efforts aimed at spreading scientifically accurate information and inspiring behavioral change. Here, I synthesize insights and theory from cultural evolution with central findings and concepts within the SSC with the aim of highlighting the inherent, but underexplored, consilience between these two fields. I demonstrate how cultural evolution can serve as an unifying framework for the SSC and how, conversely, science communication can serve as a fertile testing ground for applying, exploring, and advancing cultural evolutionary theory in a real-world setting that matters. Lastly, I highlight merits and limitations of previous applications of cultural evolution to science communication and conclude with some particularly outstanding questions that emerge at the intersection between cultural evolution and science communication research.

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