IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0083667.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Who Was Helping? The Scope for Female Cooperative Breeding in Early Homo

Author

Listed:
  • Adrian Viliami Bell
  • Katie Hinde
  • Lesley Newson

Abstract

Derived aspects of our human life history, such as short interbirth intervals and altricial newborns, have been attributed to male provisioning of nutrient-rich meat within monogamous relationships. However, many primatologists and anthropologists have questioned the relative importance of pair-bonding and biparental care, pointing to evidence that cooperative breeding better characterizes human reproductive and child-care relationships. We present a mathematical model with empirically-informed parameter ranges showing that natural selection favors cooperation among mothers over a wide range of conditions. In contrast, our analysis provides a far more narrow range of support for selection favoring male coalition-based monogamy over more promiscuous independent males, suggesting that provisioning within monogamous relationships may fall short of explaining the evolution of Homo life history. Rather, broader cooperative networks within and between the sexes provide the primary basis for our unique life history.

Suggested Citation

  • Adrian Viliami Bell & Katie Hinde & Lesley Newson, 2013. "Who Was Helping? The Scope for Female Cooperative Breeding in Early Homo," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(12), pages 1-8, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0083667
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0083667
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0083667
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0083667&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0083667?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Craig Packer & Marc Tatar & Anthony Collins, 1998. "Reproductive cessation in female mammals," Nature, Nature, vol. 392(6678), pages 807-811, April.
    2. Susanne Shultz & Christopher Opie & Quentin D. Atkinson, 2011. "Stepwise evolution of stable sociality in primates," Nature, Nature, vol. 479(7372), pages 219-222, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Maximilian Förster & Julia Klier & Mathias Klier & Katharina Schäfer-Siebert & Irina Sigler, 2022. "Leveraging the Power of Peer Groups for Refugee Integration," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 64(4), pages 441-457, August.
    2. Herbert Gintis, 2013. "The evolutionary roots of human hyper-cognition," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 83-89, April.
    3. Ernst Schwartz & Karl-Heinz Nenning & Katja Heuer & Nathan Jeffery & Ornella C. Bertrand & Roberto Toro & Gregor Kasprian & Daniela Prayer & Georg Langs, 2023. "Evolution of cortical geometry and its link to function, behaviour and ecology," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-19, December.
    4. Andrew M Hein & Scott A McKinley, 2013. "Sensory Information and Encounter Rates of Interacting Species," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(8), pages 1-11, August.
    5. Mathew E. Hauer & Carl P. Schmertmann, 2020. "Population Pyramids Yield Accurate Estimates of Total Fertility Rates," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(1), pages 221-241, February.
    6. Gifford, Adam, 2013. "Sociality, trust, kinship and cultural evolution," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 218-227.
    7. Jack L McCormack & Kevin Arbuckle & Karen Fullard & William Amos & Hazel J Nichols, 2023. "Lack of intergenerational reproductive conflict, rather than lack of inclusive fitness benefits, explains absence of post-reproductive lifespan in long-finned pilot whales," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 34(6), pages 950-959.
    8. Jan Beise & Eckart Voland, 2002. "A multilevel event history analysis of the effects of grandmothers on child mortality in a historical German population (Krummhörn, Ostfriesland, 1720-1874)," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2002-023, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    9. Woodley of Menie, Michael A. & Peñaherrera-Aguirre, Mateo & Jurgensen, JohnMichael, 2022. "Using macroevolutionary patterns to distinguish primary from secondary cognitive modules in primate cross-species performance data on five cognitive ability measures," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    10. Li, Bo & Pang, Guodong, 2022. "Functional limit theorems for nonstationary marked Hawkes processes in the high intensity regime," Stochastic Processes and their Applications, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 285-339.
    11. Jan Beise & Eckart Voland, 2002. "A multilevel event history analysis of the effects of grandmothers on child mortality in a historical German population," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 7(13), pages 469-498.
    12. Jan Beise, 2004. "The helping and the helpful grandmother - The role of maternal and paternal grandmothers in child mortality in the 17th and 18th century population of French Settlers in Quebec, Canada," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2004-004, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    13. Pingfen Zhu & Weiqiang Liu & Xiaoxiao Zhang & Meng Li & Gaoming Liu & Yang Yu & Zihao Li & Xuanjing Li & Juan Du & Xiao Wang & Cyril C. Grueter & Ming Li & Xuming Zhou, 2023. "Correlated evolution of social organization and lifespan in mammals," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-18, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0083667. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.