How do biological markets compare to the markets of economics?

After an introduction to biological markets written for non-biologists, I explore whether and to what extent natural markets, i.e. markets on which non-human traders exchange goods and services with members belonging to their own or to other species, can be compared to human ‘economic’ markets, i.e. the markets analysed by economists. Biological Market Theory (BMT) borrows jargon and ideas from economics, but was at least as much inspired by sexual selection theory, a collection of models of ‘mating markets’, including human mating markets. Here I ask two main questions: (1) Is there more than only a superficial resemblance between both types of markets? (2) Can the analysis of one yield insights about the other? First, I consider the different forms of human trading and markets and propose some biological ones to which these can best be compared, e.g. companies trading goods in markets shaped by ‘comparative advantage’ to underground nutrient exchange markets between plants and rhizobial bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi; job and retail markets with pollination, seed dispersal and protection markets between plants and insects; ‘embedded markets’ with grooming markets in non-human primates and so forth. Then I look at some phenomena that are considered to be exclusive to human markets, such as common currencies and binding contracts, and ask whether these are indeed that exclusive. Finally I look at the common ground: negotiations that take place on several types of markets, natural or not; the honesty of advertisements, which is recognised as a major problem for both human and non-human clients; the biological equivalent of the market – firm dichotomy and the importance of the costs of partner choice, which are known to economists as ‘transaction costs’ and to sexual selection theoreticians as ‘search costs’. I conclude that there are several good reasons to have a closer look at those properties that set human and biological markets apart, but certainly also at those features that make them comparable to each other

How do biological markets compare to the markets of economics?

After an introduction to biological markets written for non-biologists, I explore whether and to what extent natural markets, i.e. markets on which non-human traders exchange goods and services with members belonging to their own or to other species, can be compared to human ‘economic’ markets, i.e. the markets analysed by economists. Biological Market Theory (BMT) borrows jargon and ideas from economics, but was at least as much inspired by sexual selection theory, a collection of models of ‘mating markets’, including human mating markets. Here I ask two main questions: (1) Is there more than only a superficial resemblance between both types of markets? (2) Can the analysis of one yield insights about the other? First, I consider the different forms of human trading and markets and propose some biological ones to which these can best be compared, e.g. companies trading goods in markets shaped by ‘comparative advantage’ to underground nutrient exchange markets between plants and rhizobial bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi; job and retail markets with pollination, seed dispersal and protection markets between plants and insects; ‘embedded markets’ with grooming markets in non-human primates and so forth. Then I look at some phenomena that are considered to be exclusive to human markets, such as common currencies and binding contracts, and ask whether these are indeed that exclusive. Finally I look at the common ground: negotiations that take place on several types of markets, natural or not; the honesty of advertisements, which is recognised as a major problem for both human and non-human clients; the biological equivalent of the market – firm dichotomy and the importance of the costs of partner choice, which are known to economists as ‘transaction costs’ and to sexual selection theoreticians as ‘search costs’. I conclude that there are several good reasons to have a closer look at those properties that set human and biological markets apart, but certainly also at those features that make them comparable to each other

How do biological markets compare to the markets of economics?

After an introduction to biological markets written for non-biologists, I explore whether and to what extent natural markets, i.e. markets on which non-human traders exchange goods and services with members belonging to their own or to other species, can be compared to human ‘economic’ markets, i.e. the markets analysed by economists. Biological Market Theory (BMT) borrows jargon and ideas from economics, but was at least as much inspired by sexual selection theory, a collection of models of ‘mating markets’, including human mating markets. Here I ask two main questions: (1) Is there more than only a superficial resemblance between both types of markets? (2) Can the analysis of one yield insights about the other? First, I consider the different forms of human trading and markets and propose some biological ones to which these can best be compared, e.g. companies trading goods in markets shaped by ‘comparative advantage’ to underground nutrient exchange markets between plants and rhizobial bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi; job and retail markets with pollination, seed dispersal and protection markets between plants and insects; ‘embedded markets’ with grooming markets in non-human primates and so forth. Then I look at some phenomena that are considered to be exclusive to human markets, such as common currencies and binding contracts, and ask whether these are indeed that exclusive. Finally I look at the common ground: negotiations that take place on several types of markets, natural or not; the honesty of advertisements, which is recognised as a major problem for both human and non-human clients; the biological equivalent of the market – firm dichotomy and the importance of the costs of partner choice, which are known to economists as ‘transaction costs’ and to sexual selection theoreticians as ‘search costs’. I conclude that there are several good reasons to have a closer look at those properties that set human and biological markets apart, but certainly also at those features that make them comparable to each other

Determinants of Paternity Success in a Group of Captive Vervet Monkeys ( Chlorocebus aethiops sabaeus )

Paternity success of high-ranking primate males is affected by the number of males and the number of fertile females and their cycle synchrony. Female vervets in the wild show strong reproductive seasonality and do not advertise the ovulatory period with conspicuous signals or behavior. Because this makes it difficult for males to monopolize fertile females, it can be expected that male reproductive skew in this species is lower than in other cercopithecines living in multimale groups that advertise the ovulatory period. We assessed male reproductive success in a captive vervet group, initially consisting of 4 males and 12 unrelated females. Besides a general low reproductive skew, we predicted paternity success of the alpha males to be dependent on the overlap of synchronously fertile females, month into alpha male tenure, and housing conditions (the subjects were kept in a large park but had to be locked in a small indoor compartment during the winter months). Further, because the number of males reaching their prime increased over time, we predicted a decrease in reproductive success of the alpha male with increasing tenure length of the alpha male. To assess this we collected genetic samples from 27 of 32 offspring born into the group during 3yr, using 7 polymorphic human microsatellite markers. Contrary to our predictions, reproductive success of the males occupying the alpha position during the study was among the highest found in cercopithecines, with the alpha males siring 78% of all offspring. The degree of overlapping fertile periods did not affect paternity success, nor did paternity success of the alpha male differ between the 2 housing conditions. Only the alpha male's tenure length had an effect. Alpha male reproductive success decreased over time, which we attribute to either a shift in female mate choice toward younger males or to increased competition among the males in the later stage of the alpha male's tenure. This study demonstrates the importance of assessing reproductive success of males throughout >1 season and should spawn more research into the role of female choice and postcopulatory mechanisms in this specie

Going That Extra Mile: Individuals Travel Further to Maintain Face-to-Face Contact with Highly Related Kin than with Less Related Kin

The theory of inclusive fitness has transformed our understanding of cooperation and altruism. However, the proximate psychological underpinnings of altruism are less well understood, and it has been argued that emotional closeness mediates the relationship between genetic relatedness and altruism. In this study, we use a real-life costly behaviour (travel time) to dissociate the effects of genetic relatedness from emotional closeness. Participants travelled further to see more closely related kin, as compared to more distantly related kin. For distantly related kin, the level of emotional closeness mediated this relationship - when emotional closeness was controlled for, there was no effect of genetic relatedness on travel time. However, participants were willing to travel further to visit parents, children and siblings as compared to more distantly related kin, even when emotional closeness was controlled for. This suggests that the mediating effect of emotional closeness on altruism varies with levels of genetic relatednes

Human Perception of Fear in Dogs Varies According to Experience with Dogs

To investigate the role of experience in humans’ perception of emotion using canine visual signals, we asked adults with various levels of dog experience to interpret the emotions of dogs displayed in videos. The video stimuli had been pre-categorized by an expert panel of dog behavior professionals as showing examples of happy or fearful dog behavior. In a sample of 2,163 participants, the level of dog experience strongly predicted identification of fearful, but not of happy, emotional examples. The probability of selecting the “fearful” category to describe fearful examples increased with experience and ranged from.30 among those who had never lived with a dog to greater than.70 among dog professionals. In contrast, the probability of selecting the “happy” category to describe happy emotional examples varied little by experience, ranging from.90 to.93. In addition, the number of physical features of the dog that participants reported using for emotional interpretations increased with experience, and in particular, more-experienced respondents were more likely to attend to the ears. Lastly, more-experienced respondents provided lower difficulty and higher accuracy self-ratings than less-experienced respondents when interpreting both happy and fearful emotional examples. The human perception of emotion in other humans has previously been shown to be sensitive to individual differences in social experience, and the results of the current study extend the notion of experience-dependent processes from the intraspecific to the interspecific domain

Kea cooperate better with sharing affiliates

Controlled studies that focus on intraspecific cooperation tasks have revealed striking similarities, but also differences, in abilities across taxa as diverse as primates, fish, and birds. Such comparisons may provide insight into the specific socio-ecological selection pressures that led to the evolution of cooperation. Unfortunately, however, compared to primates data on birds remain relatively scarce. We tested a New Zealand psittaciform, the kea, in a dyadic cooperation task using the loose-string design. During trials our subjects were in separate compartments, but obtained a common reward that could be divided multiple ways, allowing the examination of reward division effects. Ten individuals were tested twice in 44 combinations of partners. Dyads with a high affiliation score attempted to cooperate more often and were also more often successful in doing so. Furthermore, dyads that shared rewards more equally seemed to be more likely to attempt cooperation in the next trial. Like other bird and some monkey species, but unlike, for example, chimpanzees, kea did not spontaneously show understanding of either the role of the partner or the mechanism behind the cooperation task. This may point to true disparities between species, but may also be due to differences in task design and/or the amount of exposure to similar tasks and individual skills of the subjects. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10071-016-1017-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users