ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2023
The evolution of intergroup cooperation.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 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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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- The Evolutionary-Ecological Basis of Xenophilia.Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.) · 2026Article
- Non-breeding social behaviour as an investment in reducing future territoriality costs.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Close encounters of the friendly kind: pacific between-group interactions in primates.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Multi-level societies: different tasks at different social levels.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Transmission of social status drives cooperation and offspring philopatry.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- The evolution of intergroup cooperation.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- A multi-scale review of the dynamics of collective behaviour: from rapid responses to ontogeny and evolution.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
Sociality is widespread among animals, and involves complex relationships within and between social groups. While intragroup interactions are often cooperative, intergroup interactions typically involve conflict, or at best tolerance. Active cooperation between members of distinct, separate groups occurs very rarely, predominantly in some primate and ant species. Here, we ask why intergroup cooperation is so rare, and what conditions favour its evolution. We present a model incorporating intra- and intergroup relationships and local and long-distance dispersal. We show that dispersal modes play a pivotal role in the evolution of intergroup interactions. Both long-distance and local dispersal processes drive population social structure, and the costs and benefits of intergroup conflict, tolerance and cooperation. Overall, the evolution of multi-group interaction patterns, including both intergroup aggression and intergroup tolerance, or even altruism, is more likely with mostly localized dispersal. However, the evolution of these intergroup relationships may have significant ecological impacts, and this feedback may alter the ecological conditions that favour its own evolution. These results show that the evolution of intergroup cooperation is favoured by a specific set of conditions, and may not be evolutionarily stable. We discuss how our results relate to empirical evidence of intergroup cooperation in ants and primates. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Collective behaviour through time'.
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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.