Survival Strategies: Cooperation and Conflict in Animal Societies
Social animals and apparent altruism bothered Darwin as he developed the theory of natural selection, and they continue to puzzle evolutionary scientists. Gadagkar, author of both technical and popular works on evolution and a senior fellow of the Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, examines the fine balance of cooperation and conflict inherent in the social behavior that leads to such diverse phenomena as sterile worker bees, suicidal cellular slime molds, and alarm calls among ground squirrels. While it is easy to see, for example, how queen bees "exploit" sterile workers, Gadagkar shows how worker bees also exploit the queen. He uses game theory and kin selection, a theory based on the "relatedness" of the players, to show how social behavior and apparent altruism can evolve according to strict natural selection. Kin selection is not universally accepted, however; for an alternative theory, try Amotz and Avish Zahavi's The Handicap Principle (LJ 4/15/97). Still, Gadagkar's clear prose avoids heavy mathematical digressions. Highly recommended for both general and academic collections.?Bruce Neville, Univ. of New Mexico Lib., AlbuquerqueCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.