nucleation

LIT-1225: Division of labour and the evolution of extreme specialization

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StatusActive — read 2026-10-29 (NOTE-1369) in full, from the authors' accepted manuscript in the Oxford University Research Archive; worth reading as the model in which division of labour, once favoured, always yields a pure reproductive and often a sterile helper, with relatedness irrelevant to whether it evolves for an essential trait. Read it knowing that the proofs and simulations are in a supplement not read, that its Table 1 and Figure 5 disagree on how efficiency affects the proportion of helpers, and that it shows dependence, not the vulnerability to losing a specialist that A46 attributed to it.
Version2
Tagsphilosophy-of-biology, ecology
Cited as “paper” byNOTE-1369 — Cooper and West — Division of labour and the evolution of extreme specialization

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Cooper, G. A. & West, S. A. (2018). Division of labour and the evolution of extreme specialization. Nature Ecology & Evolution 2(7): 1161–1167. doi:10.1038/s41559-018-0564-9.

Read in full on 2026-10-29 (NOTE-1369).

Why this is here

A46 of the exchange cited it with Chesson for niche specialization, for the point that specialization “may improve local coordination while” creating dependence. Bears on CLAIM-279 and QUESTION-083. A reading should check A46’s summary of its findings, which the readers could not check against an abstract.

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