ArticleeLife2021
The evolution of division of labour in structured and unstructured groups.
Article in eLife, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 26 citations in OpenAlex.
- Training Collaborators for Effective Division of Labor.Cognitive science · 2026Article
- Evolution of irreversible differentiation under stage-dependent cell differentiation.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- The evolution of autonomy from two cooperative specialists in fluctuating environments.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Coevolution of larval signalling and worker response can trigger developmental caste determination in social insects.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Resource adaptation drives the size-complexity rule in termites.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Why cultural distance can promote - or impede - group-beneficial outcomes.Evolutionary human sciences · 2024Article
- Signatures of kin selection in a natural population of the bacteriaEvolution letters · 2023Article
- Article
- Ecological drivers of division of labour in Streptomyces.Current opinion in microbiology · 2022Review
- Losing out to improve group fitness.eLife · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Recent theory has overturned the assumption that accelerating returns from individual specialisation are required to favour the evolution of division of labour. Yanni et al., 2020, showed that topologically constrained groups, where cells cooperate with only direct neighbours such as for filaments or branching growths, can evolve a reproductive division of labour even with diminishing returns from individual specialisation. We develop a conceptual framework and specific models to investigate the factors that can favour the initial evolution of reproductive division of labour. We find that selection for division of labour in topologically constrained groups: (1) is not a single mechanism to favour division of labour-depending upon details of the group structure, division of labour can be favoured for different reasons; (2) always involves an efficiency benefit at the level of group fitness; and (3) requires a mechanism of coordination to determine which individuals perform which tasks. Given that such coordination must evolve prior to or concurrently with division of labour, this could limit the extent to which topological constraints favoured the initial evolution of division of labour. We conclude by suggesting experimental designs that could determine why division of labour is favoured in the natural world.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.