​Interacting in a changing world: the role of phenotypic plasticity in social evolution

Interacting with conspecifics is an important part of an organism’s life, often crucial to reproduction and survival. Traits mediating social interactions can have a genetic basis and be under selection, a process known as social evolution. Theory in social evolution has highlighted how interactions can affect the rate of evolution by accelerating or constraining the response to selection. Current models, however, do not yet fully capture the dynamic nature of social interactions: individuals typically differ in social behavior and adjust it to social partners. As a result, we still poorly understand how between- and within-individual variation, which determines heritable variation on which selection can act upon, affects the direction and speed of evolution. This symposium seeks to showcase recent advances in the field, focusing on individuality and plasticity. In doing so we aim to stimulate discussion and identify potential gaps and future directions of research on social evolution.

3rd Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology
Montreal, QC, Canada, July 26–30 2024

​Symposium organisers:
Francesca Santostefano, University of Exeter, UK
Tom Ratz, University of Zurich, Switzerland

Registration here.

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