Considering Alternative Routes to Cooperation: The Role of Development and Individual Variation

Jessica A. Cusick, PhD will be joining us remotely this week from Utah Valley University for Science Workshop. Bennington students can meet in Dickinson 232 to Zoom in as a large group, and enjoy some refreshments.

Cooperation is a complex behavior in which individuals act in ways that increase the fitness of others while enduring a cost to themselves. The evolution of cooperation is considered a paradox in the field of biology because a behavior that harms the actor for the benefit of another individual is not easily explained by the theory of natural selection. Ultimate explanations for cooperative behavior are increasingly well understood, however investigations into the proximate mechanisms influencing the occurrence of cooperation, including the importance of individual variation, is still needed. In this talk, Dr Cusick will be discussing how maternal effects (e.g., maternal stress and microbiome manipulations) can have lasting effects on an individual’s physiology and behavior and whether individual differences in physiology and behavior can explain variation in cooperation.