Nurses and cooperation: lessons learned between nature and society
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56116/cms.v65.n3.2025.2470Keywords:
plant-plant interaction, collective care, wet nursesAbstract
This paper aims to share similarities between plant-plant facilitation by nurses and social cooperation, through a review of specialized scientific and technical literature. Nurse plant facilitation is a positive interaction in which one species benefit another, potentially favoring the germination, establishment, and species richness of a community, especially in harsh environments. Similarly, in humans, wet nurse improves infant survival, while cooperation strengthens networks beneficial to society. Thus, facilitation, both ecological and social, generates favorable conditions for the long-term maintenance of communities and societies. This discussion sheds light on the development of both approaches, building bridges between ecological and social knowledge.
Downloads
References
• Abdelrahmman, K., Borg, B., Mihrshahi, S., & Gribble, K. (2024). Facilitators and barriers of wet nursing from antiquity to the present: A narrative review with implications for emergencies. Breastfeeding Medicine, 19(3), 155–165.
• Acuna-Rodriguez, I. S., Cavieres, L. A., & Gianoli, E. (2006). Nurse effect in seedling establishment: Facilitation and tolerance to damage in the Andes of central Chile. Revista Chilena de Historia Natural, 79(3), 329–336.
• Alcántara, J. M., Verdú, M., Garrido, J. L., Montesinos-Navarro, A., Aizen, M. A., Alifriqui, M., et al. (2025). Key concepts and a world-wide look at plant recruitment networks. Biological Reviews, 100, 1127–1151.
• Bertness, M. D., & Callaway, R. (1994). Positive interactions in communities. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 9(5), 191–193.
• Bruno, J. F., Stachowicz, J. J., & Bertness, M. D. (2003). Inclusion of facilitation into ecological theory. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 18, 119–125.
• Cavieres, L., Arroyo, M. T. K., Peñaloza, A., Molina-Montenegro, M., & Torres, C. (2002). Nurse effect of Bolax gummifera cushion plants in the alpine vegetation of the Chilean Patagonian Andes. Journal of Vegetation Science, 13, 547–554.
• Cavieres, L. A., & Badano, E. I. (2009). Do facilitative interactions increase species richness at the entire community level? Journal of Ecology, 97, 1181–1191.
• Chomsky, N. (2002). Understanding power: The indispensable Chomsky. The New Press.
• Crittenden, A. N., & Marlowe, F. W. (2008). Allomaternal care among the Hadza of Tanzania. Human Nature, 19(3), 249–262.
• Duarte, M., Verdú, M., Cavieres, L. A., & Bustamante, R. O. (2021). Plant–plant facilitation increases with reduced phylogenetic relatedness along an elevation gradient. Oikos, 130, 248–259.
• Hewlett, B. S. (1993). Intimate fathers: The nature and context of Aka Pygmy paternal infant care. University of Michigan Press.
• Hewlett, B. S., & Winn, S. (2014). Allomaternal nursing in humans. Current Anthropology, 55(2), 200–229.
• Nowak, M. A. (2006). Five rules for the evolution of cooperation. Science, 314(5805), 1560–1563.
• Pugnaire, F. I., & Valladares, F. (1999). Facilitation in plant communities. In F. I. Pugnaire & F. Valladares (Eds.), Handbook of functional plant ecology (pp. 623–648). CRC Press.
• Sussman, G. D. (1977). Parisian infants and Norman wet nurses in the early nineteenth century: A statistical study. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 7(4), 637–653.
• Valiente-Banuet, A., Rumebe, A. V., Verdú, M., & Callaway, R. M. (2006). Modern Quaternary plant lineages promote diversity through facilitation of ancient Tertiary lineages. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 103(45), 16812–16817.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
Categories
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Milen Duarte Muñoz
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
