scholarly journals Rank Change and Growth Within Social Hierarchies of the Orange Clownfish, Amphiprion Percula

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy M Fitzgerald ◽  
Hugo B Harrison ◽  
Darren J. Coker ◽  
Pablo Saenz-Agudelo ◽  
Maya Sriniva ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Fish Population ◽  
Subject Area ◽  
Model Organisms ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Amphiprion Percula ◽  
Distribution Of Resources ◽  
Valuable Characteristic ◽  
Host Anemone

Abstract Social hierarchies within groups define the distribution of resources and provide benefits that support the collective group or favor dominant members. The progression of individuals through social hierarchies is a valuable characteristic for quantifying population dynamics. On coral reefs, a number of small site-attached fish maintain size-based hierarchical communities where individuals queue through social ranks. The cost of waiting in a lower-ranked position is outweighed by the reduced risk of eviction and mortality. Clownfish exist in stable social groups with subordinate individuals queuing to be part of the dominant breeding pair. Site attachment to their host anemone, complex social interactions, and relatively low predation rates make them ideal model organisms to assess changes in group dynamics through time in their natural environment. Here, we investigate the rank changes, and isometric growth rates of individual orange clownfish, Amphiprion percula, from 247 naturally occurring social groups in Kimbe Island, Papua New Guinea (5°12’13.54” S, 150°22’32.69” E). We use DNA profiling to assign and track individuals over an eight-year time period in 2011 and 2019. Over half of the individuals survived alongside two or three members of their original social group, with twelve breeding pairs persisting over the study period. Half of the surviving individuals increased in rank and experienced double the growth rate of those that maintained their rank. Examining rank change over a long-term period in a wild fish population gives new insights and highlights the complexity and importance of rank and social hierarchy in communal site-attached reef fish.Subject Area: behavior, ecology, evolution

A Feminist Defense of Political Liberalism

John Rawls ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 249-262
Author(s):  
Christie Hartley ◽  
Lori Watson
Keyword(s):  
Social Power ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Internal Resources ◽  
Substantive Equality ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Subordination ◽  
Equal Citizenship

Some feminists claim that liberal theories lack the resources necessary for fully diagnosing and remedying the social subordination of persons as members of social groups. Part of the problem is that liberals focus too narrowly on the state as the locus of political power. However, equal citizenship is also affected by systems of power that operate in the background culture and that construct social hierarchies in which persons are subordinated as members of social groups. This chapter argues that political liberalism, properly understood, entails a commitment to substantive equality such that it has the internal resources to address the kinds of inequality produced by unjust forms of social power. Although some will claim that if the basic structure is the subject of justice, political liberalism will still fall short of securing gender justice, we explain why this worry is misplaced.

Behavioural consistency and group conformity in humbug damselfish

Behaviour ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 154 (13-15) ◽  
pp. 1343-1359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alicia L.J. Burns ◽  
Timothy M. Schaerf ◽  
Ashley J.W. Ward
Keyword(s):  
Dominance Rank ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Null Model ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Absolute Size ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Behavioural Type ◽  
Level Of Activity ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Dascyllus Aruanus

Abstract Humbug damselfish, Dascyllus aruanus, are a common coral reef fish that form stable social groups with size-based social hierarchies. Here we caught whole wild groups of damselfish and tested whether social groups tended to be comprised of animals that are more similar to one another in terms of their behavioural type, than expected by chance. First we found that individuals were repeatable in their level of activity and exploration, and that this was independent of both absolute size and within-group dominance rank, indicating that animals were behaviourally consistent. Secondly, despite the fact that individuals were tested independently, the behaviour of members of the same groups was significantly more similar than expected under a null model, suggesting that individual behaviour develops and is shaped by conformity to the behaviour of other group members. This is one of the first studies to demonstrate this group-level behavioural conformity in wild-caught groups.

Power

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfonso Troisi
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Ecological Condition ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Agricultural Revolution ◽  
Personality Correlates ◽  
Health And Disease ◽  
The Impact

This chapter focuses on social control obtained through coercion. To answer the question of why some people strive for power, evolutionary behavioral biologists look at the phylogeny of dominance systems. Sociophysiology has unveiled the physiological correlates, such as levels of serotonin and testosterone, of dominant and subordinate status in monkeys and humans, and comparative studies have shown the impact of social hierarchies on health and disease vulnerability. Unlike most human societies that arose after the agricultural revolution of 12,000 years ago, groups of hunter-gatherers actively ostracized any individual attempt to attain dominant status. This ecological condition was wiped out by the agricultural revolution, and the more primitive predisposition toward hierarchical relationships re-emerged in human societies. The final section of the chapter illustrates recent data from psychological studies showing the personality correlates of two types of power that coexist in contemporary social groups: power based on intimidation and oppression, and power based on prestige and self-esteem.

Not Just Intergroup: The Role of Status Within Groups in the Sandusky Scandal

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-152
Author(s):  
Sarah F. Bailey ◽  
Amanda J. Ferguson
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Attitudes And Behaviors ◽  
Penn State ◽  
And Behaviors ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms

The series of events in the 2011 Penn State sexual abuse scandal were tumultuous and complex. Alderfer's (2013) focal article on the group-level phenomena surrounding the scandal provides a unique lens to view these events. However, questions remain about how relationships both within and between the groups involved in the scandal resulted in these outcomes. In particular, why did members of groups within Penn State fail to act, whereas people who belonged to other social groups took action? In short, we agree that group and intergroup boundaries were important in this situation, but would like to further elaborate on the underlying mechanisms behind their significance. Beyond the fact that individuals belonged to different groups, what aspects of group dynamics explain the differences in their perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors in this scandal?

scholarly journals Spatial Justice Models: An Exploratory Analysis on Fair Distribution of Opportunities

2021 ◽  
pp. 674-683
Author(s):  
Fillipe Oliveira Feitosa ◽  
Jan-Hendrik Wolf ◽  
João Lourenço Marques
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Spatial Configuration ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Factor ◽  
Facility Location Problem ◽  
Function Optimization ◽  
Spatial Justice ◽  
Decision Systems ◽  
Distribution Of Resources

AbstractEquity, fairness, and justice are related concepts widely discussed in several areas of study but remain an open field in terms of spatial justice and support decision systems application. Uneven spatial development have shown a tendency to amplify social inequalities alongside territories. To better understand the spatial configuration and spatial distribution of resources for different social groups, multiple objective criteria can be used to formulate optimal resource allocation. This work discusses spatial justice by utilitarianism and Rawlsian difference principle perspectives to formulate two models based on facility location problem (FLP) framework. Assuming the proximity to a desired opportunity (service or resource) as a measure of wellbeing and satisfaction, we weight the distances to the nearest facility by a social factor based on exponential function. Optimization results tend to favor outliers for weighted FLP, while the regular distances FLP formulation tend to favor heavy urban areas. We found that results are heavy context based, as the distribution of social groups are determinant in optimization process.

scholarly journals Reproductive skew, fitness costs, and winner-loser effects in social-dominance evolution

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olof Leimar ◽  
Redouan Bshary
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Social Dominance ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Reproductive Skew ◽  
Fitness Costs ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Hierarchy Formation ◽  
Winner And Loser Effects ◽  
Distribution Of Resources

Social hierarchies can increase reproductive skew in group-living animals. Using game theory we investigate how the opportunity for differently ranked individuals to acquire resources influences reproductive skew, costs of hierarchy formation, and winner and loser effects. Individuals adjust their aggressive and submissive behaviour through reinforcement learning. The learning is based on perceived rewards and penalties, which depend on relative fighting ability. From individual-based simulations we determine evolutionary equilibria of traits that control an individual's learning. We examine situations that differ in the extent of monopolisation of contested resources by dominants and in the amounts of uncontested resources that are distributed independently of rank. With costly fighting, we find that stable dominance hierarchies form, such that reproductive skew mirrors the distribution of resources over ranks. Individuals pay substantial costs of interacting, in particular in high-skew situations, with the highest costs paid by intermediately ranked individuals. For cases where dominants monopolise contested resources there are notable winner and loser effects, with winner effects for high ranks and very pronounced loser effects for lower ranks. The effects are instead weak when acquired resources increase linearly with rank. We compare our results on contest costs and winner-loser effects with field and experimental observations.

Non-Ideal Theorizing, Social Groups, and Knowledge of Oppression: A Response

Hypatia ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 177-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa H. Schwartzman
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
Ideal Theory ◽  
Standpoint Theory ◽  
Social Hierarchies

In responding to Anderson, Tobin, and Mills, I focus on questions about non-ideal theory, normative individualism, and standpoint theory. In particular, I ask whether feminist theorizing can be “liberal” and yet not embody the problematic forms of abstraction and individualism described in Challenging Liberalism. Ultimately, I call for methods of theorizing that illuminate and challenge oppressive social hierarchies.

scholarly journals No evidence for individual recognition in threespine or ninespine sticklebacks ( Gasterosteus aculeatus or Pungitius pungitius )

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
pp. 191703
Author(s):  
Mike M. Webster ◽  
Kevin N. Laland
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Food Reward ◽  
Gasterosteus Aculeatus ◽  
Individual Recognition ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Model Organisms ◽  
Pungitius Pungitius ◽  
Trained Subjects ◽  
Exciting Opportunity ◽  
Class Level

Recognition plays an important role in the formation and organization of animal groups. Many animals are capable of class-level recognition, discriminating, for example, on the basis of species, kinship or familiarity. Individual recognition requires that animals recognize distinct cues, and learn to associate these with the specific individual from which they are derived. In this study, we asked whether sticklebacks ( Gasterosteus aculeatus and Pungitius pungitius ) were capable of learning to recognize individual conspecifics. We have used these fish as model organisms for studying selective social learning, and demonstrating a capacity for individual recognition in these species would provide an exciting opportunity for studying how biases for copying specific individuals shape the dynamics of information transmission. To test for individual recognition, we trained subjects to associate green illumination with the provision of a food reward close to one of two conspecifics, and, for comparison, one of two physical landmarks. Both species were capable of recognizing the rewarded landmark, but neither showed a preference for associating with the rewarded conspecific. Our study provides no evidence for individual recognition in either species. We speculate that the fission–fusion structure of their social groups may not favour a capacity for individual recognition.

The semiotic dimensions of vertical social (self)classification

Semiotica ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 (205) ◽  
pp. 243-260
Author(s):  
Ágnes Kapitány ◽  
Gábor Kapitány
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Self ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Foreign Culture ◽  
Sign System ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
The Empirical Analysis ◽  
Linguistic Usage

AbstractThrough the empirical analysis of a concrete phenomenon (the traveler’s encounter with another culture), the authors attempt to describe what criteria people apply in everyday life to determine the place of a particular culture (their own culture and the foreign culture) within a (subjective) hierarchy. They distinguish nine dimensions of classification: according to their hypothesis travelers used a combination of these criteria to create their subjective notion of the hierarchy of different cultures. The authors find that we also use these same criteria for the formation of a vertical hierarchy in other areas of (socio)semiosis (for example, in forming the hierarchy of foods, or of social groups that distinguish themselves from each other on the basis of differences in linguistic usage). The authors assume that the analytical dimensions proposed can be applied uniformly in all cases when sociosemiotics wishes to describe the sign system of social hierarchies, vertical classifications, and self-classifications.

scholarly journals Humans as model organisms

2017 ◽  
Vol 284 (1869) ◽  
pp. 20172115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Sterelny
Keyword(s):  
Group Formation ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Evolution Of Cooperation ◽  
Model Organisms ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Shared History ◽  
Behavioural Characteristics ◽  
Physical Traits ◽  
Structure Communication

Like every other species, our species is the result of descent with modification under the influence of natural selection; a tip in an increasingly large and deep series of nested clades, as we trace its ancestry back to increasingly remote antecedents. As a consequence of shared history, our species has much in common with many others; as a consequence of its production by the general mechanisms of evolution, our species carries information about the mechanisms that shaped other species as well. For reasons unconnected to biological theory, we have far more information about humans than we do about other species. So in principle and in practice, humans should be usable as model organisms, and no one denies the truth of this for mundane physical traits, though harnessing human data for more general questions proves to be quite challenging. However, it is also true that human cognitive and behavioural characteristics, and human social groups, are apparently radically unlike those of other animals. Humans are exceptional products of evolution and perhaps that makes them an unsuitable model system for those interested in the evolution of cooperation, complex cognition, group formation, family structure, communication, cultural learning and the like. In all these respects, we are complex and extreme cases, perhaps shaped by mechanisms (like cultural evolution or group selection) that play little role in other lineages. Most of the papers in this special issue respond by rejecting or downplaying exceptionalism. I argue that it can be an advantage: understanding the human exception reveals constraints that have restricted evolutionary options in many lineages.

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