Since Hamilton published his seminal papers in 1964, our understanding of the importance of cooperation for life on Earth has evolved beyond recognition. Early research was focused on altruism in the social insects, where the problem of cooperation was easy to see. In more recent years, research into cooperation has expanded across the entire tree of life, and has been revolutionized by advances in genetic, microbiological and analytical techniques. We highlight ten insights that have arisen from these advances, which have illuminated generalizations across different taxa, making the world simpler to explain. Furthermore, progress in these areas has opened up numerous new problems to solve, suggesting exciting directions for future research.

自从汉密尔顿于 1964 年发表了他的开创性论文以来，我们对合作对于地球生命的重要性的理解已经发展到了不可忽视的地步。早期的研究主要集中在群居昆虫的利他行为上，其中合作的问题很容易看出。近年来，合作研究已扩展到整个生命树，并因遗传、微生物和分析技术的进步而发生了革命性的变化。我们重点介绍从这些进展中产生的十项见解，这些见解阐明了不同分类单元的概括，使世界更容易解释。此外，这些领域的进展提出了许多需要解决的新问题，为未来的研究提出了令人兴奋的方向。