Social sciences articles within Nature Communications

Featured

• Article
  13 January 2017 | Open Access

  Resilient cooperators stabilize long-run cooperation in the finitely repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma

  Studying the dynamics of learning in repeated games of cooperation is complicated by the short duration of traditional experiments. Here the authors perform a virtual prisoner's dilemma game over twenty consecutive days, finding that a minority of resilient co-operators can sustain cooperation indefinitely.

  • Andrew Mao
  • , Lili Dworkin
  •  & Duncan J. Watts

• Article
  14 November 2016 | Open Access

  Competition among networks highlights the power of the weak

  Network science and game theory have been traditionally combined to analyse interactions between nodes of a network. Here, the authors model competition for importance among networks themselves, and reveal dominance of the underdogs in the fate of networks-of-networks.

  • Jaime Iranzo
  • , Javier M. Buldú
  •  & Jacobo Aguirre

• Review Article | 19 November 2014

  Global potential of biospheric carbon management for climate mitigation

  Carbon mitigation is considered an important and viable pathway towards climate stabilization, but competition for land is high. Here, Canadell and Schulze consider the sustainable implementation of a number of land-based biological carbon mitigation activities and assess the carbon savings achievable by 2050.

  • Josep G. Canadell
  •  & E. Detlef Schulze

• Article | 11 February 2014

  Regional climate model simulations indicate limited climatic impacts by operational and planned European wind farms

  Wind power installations have boomed across Europe in recent decades, yet the potentially negative impact of wind farms on climate remains largely untested. Vautard et al. parameterize operational and planned European wind farms in a regional climate model and show limited regional-scale climate impacts.

  • Robert Vautard
  • , Françoise Thais
  •  & Paolo Michele Ruti

• Article | 18 September 2013

  Group performance is maximized by hierarchical competence distribution

  Social groups often need to take decisions and solve problems together, with each member contributing to the solution in a different way. Zafeiris et al.provide a family of models that allow the definition of the ideal distribution of competences in a group to solve a given task.

  • Anna Zafeiris
  •  & Tamás Vicsek

• Article | 05 August 2013

  Conventional tree height–diameter relationships significantly overestimate aboveground carbon stocks in the Central Congo Basin

  Accurate estimates of tropical forest carbon stocks are needed for policies to reduce emissions from loss of forests. By looking at a central area in the Congo Basin, Kearsleyet al.find that inconsistencies in height–diameter relationships across Central Africa cause overestimations between regions.

  • Elizabeth Kearsley
  • , Thales de Haulleville
  •  & Hans Verbeeck

• Article | 04 June 2013

  Urban characteristics attributable to density-driven tie formation

  An enduring paradox of urban economics is why cities support levels of enterprise, such as patents and inventions, higher than the countryside. Here Pentland et al. suggest that the density of social ties provides a greater flow of ideas, resulting in increased productivity and innovation.

  • Wei Pan
  • , Gourab Ghoshal
  •  & Alex Pentland

• Article | 18 December 2012

  Recent patterns of crop yield growth and stagnation

  Demand for crops is increasing, but it is not clear whether the yields can meet this demand. Using crop yield observations, this study analyses global trends and finds that while yields continue to increase in some areas, across 24–39% of crop-growing regions, yields have stagnated or declined over the past 50 years.

  • Deepak K. Ray
  • , Navin Ramankutty
  •  & Jonathan A. Foley