When does selection favor learning from the old? Social learning in age-structured populations.

ABSTRACT: Culture and demography jointly facilitate flexible human adaptation, yet it still remains unclear how social learning operates in populations with age structure. Here, we present a mathematical model of the evolution of social learning in a population with different age classes. We investigate how demographic processes affect the adaptive value of culture, cultural adaptation and population growth, and identify the conditions that favor learning from older vs. younger individuals. We find that, even with age structure, social learning can evolve without increasing population fitness, i.e., "Rogers' paradox" still holds. However, a process of "demographic filtering", together with cultural transmission, can generate cumulative improvements in adaptation levels. We further show that older ag

SUBMITTER: Deffner D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9012401 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature