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Reeve, Hudson Kern
Cornell Faculty Member
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Positions
- Professor, Neurobiology and Behavior (BIO NB), College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS)
- Professor, Continuing Education Winter and Summer Sessions, School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions - 2012
I am interested in studying the evolution of the balance in cooperation and conflict within animal socieites and groups of interacting plants. My goal is to elucidate, through both mathematical theory and quantitative test, the general principles governing cooperation and conflict among animals, among plants, among cells within an organism, and among genes within a genome. Such principles will point the way to effective strategies of conflict minimization within socieites.
Research Areas
- agricultural engineering
- cognitive studies
- communication
- computational biology
- ecology
- entomology
- evolution
- insects
- mathematics
- neuroscience
- plant biology
- psychology
- zoology
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Research
research overview
- My principal research goal is to develop and test biologically realistic models of the evolution of cooperation and conflict in animal societies. Currently, I am investigating two classes of models that bear on the evolution of cooperation. First, I am investigating how the genetic system can affect the long-term evolution of cooperation by influencing the balance between selection and random genetic drift as forces acting upon rare cooperation-promoting genes. For example, the propensity for eusociality to evolve in ants, bees, and wasps can be explained by the tendency of their haplo-diploid genetic system to protect rare genes for female worker care from loss through genetic drift. A second major class of models involves analyses of the factors that affect the evolutionarily stable partitioning of reproduction among potential breeders in an animal society. These models assume that the dominant member(s) of the society control reproduction by the subordinate(s). If the dominant benefits from retention of the subordinate, it may pay the dominant to yield some reproduction to subordinates as inducements for these subordinates to remain in the society and cooperate peacefully rather than to leave or fight for exclusive control of the group's resources. Inducements that prevent subordinates from leaving the group are called staying incentives; inducements that prevent subordinates from fighting to the death for complete reproductive control are called peace incentives. Theoretically, the magnitudes of the peace and staying incentives yielded by dominants will direct the evolution of other key societal attributes, such as the frequency and intensity of dominance interactions and the sharpness of the division of labor within the social group. I am currently testing these theoretical predictions by examining associations between the latter colony attributes and the asymmetries in reproduction (determined by DNA fingerprinting) among the members of wasp societies. The ultimate aim of these studies is to develop and refine an empirically testable general theory of the colony-level consequences of reproductive asymmetries within animal societies.
research activities
area(s) of concentration/expertise
- Animal Behavior
- Animal Behavior, Chemical Ecology, Insect-Plant Interactions
- Animal Communication
- Animal Social Behavior
- Animal acoustic communication
- Anthropod Behavior
- Evolution of Social Behavior
- Evolutionary Biology
- Insect Population Genetics
- Life History / Evolution
- Theoretical Sociobiology, Insect Behavior
keywords
- conflict
- cooperation
- evolution
- social behavior
submitted impact statement
Publications
individual publications
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academic article
- Parental care, cost of reproduction, and reproductive skew: A general costly young model. Journal of Theoretical Biology. 284:24-31. 2011
- Reproductive Skew in Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior (M.d. Breed, Moore, J. eds.). Book volume. 1:2672. 2010
- Reproductive skew theory unified: The general bordered tug-of-war model. Journal of Theoretical Biology. 263:1-12. 2010
- The brave leader game and the timing of altruism among nonkin. American Naturalist. 176:242-248. 2010
- Z LINKAGE OF FEMALE PROMISCUITY GENES IN THE MOTH UTETHEISA ORNATRIX: SUPPORT FOR THE SEXY-SPERM HYPOTHESIS?. Evolution. 64:1267-1272. 2010
- Two experimental tests of the relationship between group stability and aggressive conflict in Polistes wasps.. Naturwissenschaften. 95:383-389. 2008
- Reproductive skew and the evolution of group dissolution tactics: a synthesis of concession and restraint models. Animal Behaviour. 74:1643-1654. 2007
- The emergence of a superorganism through intergroup competition. Proceedings at the National Academy of Science USA. 104:9736-9740. 2007
- The emergence of a superorganism through intergroup competition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; 104(23): 9736 - 9740. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). 104:9736-9740. 2007
- Escalated conflict in a social hierarchy. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B. 273:2977-2984. 2006
- Putting competition strategies into ideal free distribution models: habitat selection as a tug-of-war. Journal of Theoretical Biology. 243:587-593. 2006
- The bordered tug-of-war: a missing model in reproductive skew theory. Proceedings at the National Academy of Science USA. 103:8430-8434. 2006
- Why animals lie: How dishonesty and belief can coexist in a signaling system. American Naturalist. 168. 2006
- Low fertility in humans as the evolutionary outcome of snowballing resource games. Behavioral Ecology. 16:398-402. 2005
- Predicting the temporal dynamics of reproductive skew and group membership in communal breeders. Behavioral Ecology. 16:880-888. 2005
- Mating games: the evolution of human mating transactions. Behavioral Ecology. 15:748-756. 2004
- Optimal reproductive-skew models fail to predict aggression in social wasps. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B. 27:811-817. 2004
- Benefits of foundress associations in the paper wasp Polistes dominulus: Increased productivity and survival, but no assurance of fitness returns. Behavioral Ecology. 14:510-514. 2003
- Estimating effective paternity number in social insects and the effective number of alleles in a population. Molecular Ecology. 12:3157-3164. 2003
- Evolutionary psychology and developmental dynamics: Comment on Lickliter and Honeycutt. Psychological Bulletin. 129:848-853. 2003
- From individual control to majority rule: Extending transactional models of reproductive skew in animal societies. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B. 270:1041-1045. 2003
- Genetic biases for showy males: Are some genetic systems especially conducive to sexual selection?. Proceedings at the National Academy of Science USA. 100:1089-1094. 2003
- Matchmaking and species marriage: A game-theory model of community assembly. Proceedings at the National Academy of Science USA. 100:1787-1792. 2003
- Queens versus workers: Sex-ratio conflict in eusocial Hymenoptera. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 18:88-93. 2003
- Female control of the distribution of paternity in cooperative breeders. American Naturalist. 160:602-611. 2002
- Paternal inheritance of a female moth’s mating preference. Nature. 419:830-832. 2002
- Comparison of brain volumes between single and multiple foundresses in the paper wasp Polistes dominulus. Brain Behavior and Evolution. 57:161-168. 2001
- Signaling individual identity versus quality: a model and case studies with ruffs, queleas, and house finches. American Naturalist. 158:75-86. 2001
- Tests of reproductive skew models in social insects. Annual Review of Entomology. 46:347-385. 2001
- A transactional theory of within-group conflict. American Naturalist. 155:365-382. 2000
- Aggression and resource sharing among foundresses in the social wasp Polistes dominulus: testing transactional theories of conflict. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 48:344-352. 2000
- Extra-pair paternity as the result of reproductive transactions between paired mates. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B. 267:2543-2546. 2000
- Genetic support for the evolutionary theory of reproductive transactions in social wasps. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B. 267:75-79. 2000
- Multi-level selection and human cooperation. Evolution and Human Behavior. 21:65-72. 2000
- Reproductive skew and group size: an N-person staying incentive model. Behavioral Ecology. 11:640-647. 2000
- Unto others: The evolution and psychology of unselfish behavior. Evolution and Human Behavior. 21:65-72. 2000
- Condition-based alternative reproductive tactics in the wool-carder bee, Anthidium manicatum. Ethology, Ecology and Evolution. 11:71-75. 1999
- Sexual selection and sensory exploitation. Science. 283:1083-1084. 1999
- Dispersal of first "workers" in social wasps: Causes and implications of an alternative reproductive strategy. Proceedings at the National Academy of Science USA. 95:13737-13742. 1998
- Familiarity breeds cooperation. Nature. 394:121-122. 1998
- Parasites, Pathogens, and polyandry in honey bees. American Naturalist. 151:392-396. 1998
- Reproductive sharing in animal societies: reproductive incentives or incomplete reproductive control by dominant breeders?. Behavioural Ecology. 9:267-276. 1998
- Reproductive skew: disentangling concessions from control. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 13:458-459. 1998
- Evolutionarily stable communication between kin: a general model. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B. 264:1037-1040. 1997
- Reproductive bribing and policing as mechanisms for the suppression of within-group selfishness. American Naturalist. 150. 1997
- The eusociality continuum revisited. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 11:472. 1997
- The general protected invasion theory: sex biases in parental and alloparental care. Evolutionary Ecology Research. 11:357-370. 1997
- Within-group aggression and the value of group members: theory and a field test with social wasps. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 8:75-82. 1997
- Relatedness asymmetry and reproductive sharing in animal societies. American Naturalist. 148:764-769. 1996
- Genetic variability, queen number, and polyandry in social Hymenoptera. Evolution. 48:694-704. 1995
- Partitioning of reproduction in animal societies: mother-daughter versus sibling associations. American Naturalist. 145:119-132. 1995
- The ecology of cooperation in social wasps: causes and consequences of alternative reproductive strategies. Ecology. 76:953-967. 1995
- The eusociality continuum. Behavioral Ecology. 6:102-108. 1995
- Why do females mate with multiple males? The sexually selected sperm hypothesis. Advances in the Study of Behavior. 24:291-315. 1995
- Behavioral ecology and the levels of selection: dissolving the group selection controversy. Advances in the Study of Behavior. 23:101-133. 1994
- Kin recognition and cannibalism in spadefoot toad tadpoles. Animal Behaviour. 46:87-94. 1994
- Partitioning of reproduction in animal societies. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 9:98-102. 1994
- Using phylogenies to test hypotheses of adaptation – a critique of some current proposals. Evolution. 48:172-180. 1994
- Adaptation and the goals of evolutionary research. Quarterly Review of Biology. 68:1-32. 1993
- Haplodiploidy, eusociality, and the absence of male parental and alloparental care in the Hymenoptera – a unifying genetic hypothesis distinct from kin selection theory. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 342:335-352. 1993
- Nepotism in a solitary wasp as revealed by DNA fingerprinting. Evolution. 47:700-704. 1993
- Opportunistic adoption of orphaned nests in paper wasps as an alternative reproductive strategy. Behavioral Processes. 30:47-60. 1993
- Conflict in single-queen hymenopteran societies: the structure of conflict and processes that reduce conflict in advanced eusocial species. Journal of Theoretical Biology. 158:33-65. 1992
- Estimating average within-group relatedness from DNA fingerprints. Molecular Ecology. 1:223-232. 1992
- Queen activation of lazy workers in colonies of the eusocial naked mole-rat. Nature. 358:147-149. 1992
- Social contracts in wasp societies. Nature. 359:823-825. 1992
- Adaptive versus nonadaptive explanations of behavior: the case of alloparental helping. American Naturalist. 138:259-270. 1991
- Conceptual issues and methodology in kin recognition research: a critical discussion. Ethology. 88:109-127. 1991
- The evolution of queen-rearing nepotism in social Hymenoptera: effects of discrimination costs in swarming species. Journal of Evolutionary Biology. 4:93-115. 1991
- DNA 'fingerprinting' reveals high levels of inbreeding in colonies of the eusocial naked mole-rat. Proceedings at the National Academy of Science USA. 87:2496-2500. 1990
- Neighbor recognition and context-dependent aggression in a solitary wasp, Sphecius speciosus (Hymenoptera, Sphecidae). Ethology. 80:1-18. 1989
- The evolution of conspecific acceptance thresholds. American Naturalist. 133:407-435. 1989
- Improved hybridization conditions for DNA fingerprints probed with the M13. Nucleic Acids Research. 16:4161. 1988
- Parasites, pathogens, and polyandry in social Hymenoptera. American Naturalist. 131:602-610. 1988
- Queen regulation of worker foraging in paper wasps: a social feedback control system (Polistes Fuscatus, Hymenoptera, Vespidae). Behaviour. 102:147-167. 1987
- Nestmate recognition in social wasps: the origin and acquisition of recognition cues. Animal Behaviour. 34:685-695. 1986
- The evolution and ontogeny of nestmate recognition in social wasps. Annual Review of Entomology. 31:431-454. 1986
- Eusociality and genetic variability: a re-evaluation. Evolution. 39:200-201. 1985
- Colony activity integration in primitively eusocial wasps: the role of the queen (Polistes fuscatus, Hymenoptera, Vespidae). Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 13:63-74. 1983
- Learned component of nestmate recognition in workers of a social wasp (Polistes fuscatus, Hymenoptera: Vespidae). Animal Behaviour. 31:412-416. 1983
- The mechanism of nestmate descrimination in social wasps. (Polistes fuscatus, Hymenoptera:Vespidae). Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 13:299-305. 1983
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booksection
- Adaptations: meanings 2002
- In search of unifying models in sociobiology: help from social wasps 2002
- Optimality and phylogeny: a critique of current thought 2001
- Levels of selection: Burying the units-of-selection debate and unearthing the crucial new issues 1999
- Acting for the good of others: kinship and reciprocity, with some new twists 1998
- Game theory, reproductive skew, and nepotism 1998
- Why we need evolutionary game theory 1998
- Forward and backward: two approaches to studying human evolution 1997
- Queen-queen conflicts in polygynous societies: mutual tolerance and reproductive skew 1993
- Polistes 1991
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chapter
- Why measuring reproductive success in current population is valuable: Moving forward by going backward. Evolution of mind. 86-94. 2007
- Recognition systems. Behavioural Ecology. 69-96. 1997
- Intra-colonial aggression and nepotism by the breeding female naked mole-rat. The Biology of the Naked Mole-Rat. 337-357. 1991
- Weak queen or social contract? Reply 1993
featured in archived article
Teaching
teaching overview
- My teaching aims to convey an understanding of the theoretical framework underlying study of the evolution of behavior.
teaching activities
Service
service to the profession
reviewer or editor for
event host
Background
education and training
- Ph.D. in Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University 1990
- M.S. in Biology, Oakland University 1984
- B.S. in Biology, University of Texas at San Antonio 1981
awards and honors
Other
college
- CALS
research keyword
- conflict
- cooperation
- evolution
- social behavior
name prefix
- Professor