The tragedy of the commons in evolutionary biology

Garrett Hardin's tragedy of the commons is an analogy that shows how individuals driven by self-interest can end up destroying the resource upon which they all depend. The proposed solutions for humans rely on highly advanced skills such as negotiation, which raises the question of how non-human organisms manage to resolve similar tragedies. In recent years, this question has promoted evolutionary biologists to apply the tragedy of the commons to a wide range of biological systems. Here, we provide tools to categorize different types of tragedy and review different mechanisms, including kinship, policing and diminishing returns that can resolve conflicts that could otherwise end in tragedy. A central open question, however, is how often biological systems are able to resolve these scenarios rather than drive themselves extinct through individual-level selection favouring self-interested behaviours.

Resolving the tragedy of the commons: the feedback between intraspecific conflict and population density

Competition and conflict among individuals can favour exploitative strategies that undermine the common good. Theory suggests that this can lead to a tragedy of the commons and ultimately population extinction, a phenomenon known as evolutionary suicide. Here, I present a model of the evolutionary tragedy of the commons that explicitly considers the population dynamics where individuals invest in individually costly competitive traits. In the simplest form, this supports the notion that selection for high levels of conflict can cause evolutionary suicide. However, as competition comes with survival and fecundity costs, a feedback between the investment in competition and population density can act to reduce the level of conflict and prevent the population from going extinct. This suggests that the interaction between population ecology and the evolution of competition and conflict among individuals may be an important mechanism in resolving the level of competition and conflict among individuals.

Exhibit: “Tumult and Tragedy: Michigan’s 1913-1914 Copper Strike”

Tumult and Tragedy: Michigan’s 1913-14 Copper Strike chronicles one of the greatest upheavals in Michigan’s history. The determination, conflict, sorrow, and tragedy of this epic confrontation changed the Copper Country for decades and memories of conflict remain to this day. This traveling exhibit explores the story of this remarkable period in Michigan history.

Exhibit: “Tumult and Tragedy: Michigan’s 1913-1914 Copper Strike”

Tumult and Tragedy: Michigan’s 1913-14 Copper Strike chronicles one of the greatest upheavals in Michigan’s history. The determination, conflict, sorrow, and tragedy of this epic confrontation changed the Copper Country for decades and memories of conflict remain to this day. This traveling exhibit explores the story of this remarkable period in Michigan history.

Exhibit: “Tumult and Tragedy: Michigan’s 1913-1914 Copper Strike”

Tumult and Tragedy: Michigan’s 1913-14 Copper Strike chronicles one of the greatest upheavals in Michigan’s history. The determination, conflict, sorrow, and tragedy of this epic confrontation changed the Copper Country for decades and memories of conflict remain to this day. This traveling exhibit explores the story of this remarkable period in Michigan history.

Hamlet's Mobility: The Reception of Shakespeare's Tragedy in US-American and Canadian Narrative Fiction

This essay presents a comprehensive study of how Hamlet figures in North American fiction. Gabriele Rippl takes her cue from Stephen Greenblatt’s notion of Shakespeare’s ‘theatrical mobility’ (Greenblatt, Cultural Mobility. Cambridge University Press, 2010). This initial mobility, based on the playwright’s own borrowings, appears to facilitate, or even instigate further migrations. Rippl proceeds to give an overview of adaptations of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the USA and Canada, thus providing an insight into the historical and cultural uses to which the play has been put by authors such as John Updike or Margaret Atwood. Phenomena such as the ‘republicanization’ of Shakespeare (James Fenimore Cooper), or his appropriation for a feminist counter-discourse in Canada circumscribe a space for the negotiation of cultural and political identities.

The first edition of the tragedy of Hamlet

by William Shakespeare

Thalia Papadopoulou, Heracles and Euripidean Tragedy

Fil: Nápoli, Juan Tobías. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación; Argentina.

P. E. Easterling (Ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, xvii y 392 pp.

Fil: Nápoli, Juan Tobías. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación; Argentina.

Richard Seaford. Reciprocity and Ritual. Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City-State, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995, 455 pp.

Fil: Chazarreta, Daniela Evangelina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación; Argentina.

Thalia Papadopoulou, Heracles and Euripidean Tragedy

Fil: Nápoli, Juan Tobías. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación; Argentina.

P. E. Easterling (Ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, xvii y 392 pp.

Fil: Nápoli, Juan Tobías. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación; Argentina.

Richard Seaford. Reciprocity and Ritual. Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City-State, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995, 455 pp.

Fil: Chazarreta, Daniela Evangelina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación; Argentina.