Capilano Universe Lecture Series: Cooperation & Competition in Evolutionary Biology

To what extent is life defined by competition versus cooperation and how  did cooperative societies evolve? In this seminar, Dr Tom Flower shares his experience studying the behaviour of diverse animals around the world to illustrate how cooperative as well as competition are fundamental to interactions both within and between species. Dr Flower then explores the behavioural mechanisms that underpin complex animal societies, including our own. Finally, he addresses humanities capacity to cooperate on common resource problems and our consequently whether we can achieve a sustainable society before environmental collapse.

Registration is required – email publicservices@whistlerlibrary.ca to sign up! Please let us know if you will be attending in-person or via Zoom.

About the Series:

Capilano Universe was initiated by retired faculty member Leonard George 15 years ago. The idea was that through volunteer faculty connecting with the community over topics of interest, the vast universe of knowledge housed by the University could be expanded beyond campus boundaries.

Every spring, a series of talks is put together in collaboration with nearby public libraries — this year, the series brings on board libraries from the Sea to Sky region, in both Squamish and Whistler. Click here to learn more about the series and to explore the other lectures being offered!

About the speaker:

Dr. Tom Flower (PhD) is an Evolutionary Ecologist and Conservation Biologist who has worked across the world on diverse organisms exploring the interface between human and other organism’s societies. Dr Flower began his research in southern Africa studying conflict and cooperation in meerkats, where he helped communicate the daily soap-opera of meerkat life through the hit series ‘Meerkat Manor’. Dr Flower expanded this work at the University of Cambridge and Cape Town, to investigate the nature of deceptive communication between organisms and the enforcement of honesty, leading to collaboration with the BBC for David Attenborough’s ‘Africa’ series and appearances on both CBC’s ‘Quirks and Quarks’ as well as ‘As It Happens’.

More recently, Dr Flower has investigated human-wildlife interactions to inform biodiversity conservation of African Penguin, Marbled Murrelet, and numerous other species, while also initiating work to balance recreational trail use with biodiversity management. To address root causes of the biodiversity crisis, Dr Flower continues to explore the evolution of cooperation, its fundamental nature, and the mechanisms that promote cooperation within human societies to solve collective action problems.