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Animal behaviour

Large-scale cooperation

Nature volume 472, pages 424–425 (2011)Cite this article

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A deeper understanding of the evolution of cooperation will come from investigations of what animals know about working together. A study with Asian elephants now adds to the literature on the subject.

We are cooperating right now. You are sharing in a communicative venture that is the product of two authors coordinating their views on a scientific joint effort, mediated by an editor and a publishing team. This is no small feat; it is the result of the evolution of complex cognition that might be uniquely human. But there is increasing evidence that the evolutionary roots of cognitively rich cooperation may be found in our closest relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos. In research reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1, Plotnik et al. propose that elephants (which are only very distantly related to humans) can cooperate as cleverly as these great apes. Such an independently evolved case could help us identify the evolutionary pressures that shape intelligent minds.

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Figure 1: Togetherness.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Amanda M. Seed is in the School of Psychology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9JP, UK.,

    Amanda M. Seed

  2. Keith Jensen is in the Research Centre for Psychology, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK.,

    Keith Jensen

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  1. Amanda M. Seed
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  2. Keith Jensen
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Correspondence to Amanda M. Seed or Keith Jensen.

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Seed, A., Jensen, K. Large-scale cooperation. Nature 472, 424–425 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/472424a

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