Natural Selection and Social Behavior

This volume results from a symposium held at The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in October of 1978 and sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The papers included were, for the most part, presented at the symposium, though a few additional ones were requested fox the publication. The occasion for the symposium was the fiftieth anniversary of the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology in its present structure. It seemed to us that no better commemoration could be planned than a general discussion of the questions raised by the revolution in evolutionary biology that has occurred during the past two decades. The part of that revolution currently attracting the most attention concerns the evolutionary basis of social behavior in all parts of the animal kingdom-hence the title of the symposium and of this volume. [...] We believe that the papers included here represent most of the topics that have sparked the recent interest in behavioral evolution. Read in sequence, the papers provide an excellent overview of current research and theory. Differences of opinion and approach are obvious and are often provocative and stimulating. We have not tried to eliminate such difference