ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY SYMPOSIUM TURKEY 2015
Oral Presentations:
August 6, 9:15
Collective action and the collaborative brain
Sergey Gavrilets* Presenting Author’s Affiliation:Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Department of Mathematics, Associate Director for Scientific Activities, National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, University of Tennessee
Humans are unique both in their cognitive abilities and in the extent of cooperation in large groups of unrelated individuals. How our species evolved high intelligence in spite of various costs of having a large brain is perplexing. Equally puzzling is how our ancestors managed to overcome the collective action problem and evolve strong innate preferences for cooperative behaviour. Here, I theoretically study the evolution of social-cognitive competencies as driven by selection emerging from the need to produce public goods in games against nature or in direct competition with other groups. I use collaborative ability in collective actions as a proxy for social-cognitive competencies. My results suggest that collaborative ability is more likely to evolve first by between-group conflicts and then later be utilized and improved in games against nature. If collaborative abilities remain low, the species is predicted to become genetically dimorphic with a small proportion of individuals contributing to public goods and the rest free-riding. Evolution of collaborative ability creates conditions for the subsequent evolution of collaborative communication and cultural learning.
August 6, 10:15
Phylogenomic reconstructions predicts a single unique event leading to the origin of two icons of science Devils' Hole and Devils Hole Pupfish.
İsmail K. Sağlam*, J. Baumsteiger, M. Smith, J. Linares-Casenave, A.L. Nichols, S. O'Rourke and M.R. Miller Presenting Author’s Affiliation: Hacettepe University, Department of Biology
The Devils' Hole pupfish Cyprinodon diabolis is considered to be one of the most iconic species alive. It is both the most vulnerable vertebrate species alive is also an evolutionary anomaly having survived for thousands of years in the smallest habitat know to a vertebrate. However molecular studies show that C. diabolis is only 400 years old and most probably an artificial population. Since evolutionary dating depends on many assumptions our goal was to come up with a method for accurate estimation of the divergence of C. diabolis that would depend on as little assumptions as possible and that could also be predictive. Using RAD sequencing we interrogated 2/3 of the genome and reconstructed multiple independent phylogenomic trees. We then estimated divergence times under multiple scenarios by calibrating a single node and using only this prior information for predictive modeling. Our model has two novel strengths: 1) The reconstructed trees are unbiased estimates of evolutionary history and 2) parameters effecting divergence times are inferred and not fixed a prior. Our results not only capture the known mutation rate of vertebrates but predicts that C. diabolis is much older and is the same age as Devil's Hole (60ka). Hence our model predicts that a yet unknown single event led to the origin of both Devils Hole and C. diabolis.