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Appropriate management of social groups is one of the greatest challenges that face zoos and aquaria worldwide. To facilitate breeding programmes, particularly in polygynous species, there is a need to house surplus males in bachelor groups, yet for pinnipeds, the social impact of this management strategy is unknown. The aim of this research was to enhance understanding of sociality in South American fur seals (SAFSs), with a particular focus on social dynamics in a related bachelor group, and consider implications for evidence-based management of this species in zoos. The subjects were four related male seals housed at Bristol Zoo Gardens. Social interaction and nearest neighbour data were collected between February and July 2019. Individuals engaged in both positive and negative social interactions. Positive interactions were more frequent than negative interactions, and no excessive negative interactions were observed. Temporal dynamics were observed in social relationships, and negative interactions did not increase with the onset of the breeding season. Reciprocity in dyadic relationships was variable across the study months, and nearest neighbours were not necessarily reflective of social partners. This research highlights the importance of longitudinal monitoring of social relationships and establishment of baseline social behaviour profiles to support evidence-based species management. We advocate that this research is extended, to further develop our understanding of SAFS social needs within zoo environments, to understand the differences between single-sex and mixed-sex groups and to identify the degree to which the extensive research conducted in other polygynous species (e.g., gorillas) is applicable in the social management of South American fur seals moving forwards.

One important type of animal welfare concern is “natural living” (i.e., that animals are able to express natural behaviours that are important to them, and to engage with aspects of the natural world that they find important). The aims of this narrative review were to describe the behavioural development of calves (Bos taurus) in natural settings and use this to identify characteristics of natural systems that may be important to consider relative to this natural living conception of animal welfare. At birth, calves are licked by their mothers and soon stand to suckle for colostrum, and during the milk-feeding period, calves spend much of their time lying down. In natural systems, calves perform a variety of social behaviours with herd-mates, and slowly transition from their mother’s milk to eating solid food, by gradually increasing time spent grazing and ruminating. In contrast, on most commercial dairy systems, dairy calves are removed from their mothers at birth, housed individually, fed restricted amounts of milk and weaned abruptly at a young age. The results of this review suggest that accommodating key natural behaviours, for example through the use of teat feeding of milk, social housing, and gradual weaning, can help address welfare concerns.

One way to increase cognitive capacity is to avoid duplication of functions on the left and right sides of the brain. There is a convincing body of evidence showing that such asymmetry, or lateralization, occurs in a wide range of both vertebrate and invertebrate species. Each hemisphere of the brain can attend to different types of stimuli or to different aspects of the same stimulus and each hemisphere analyses information using different neural processes. A brain can engage in more than one task at the same time, as in monitoring for predators (right hemisphere) while searching for food (left hemisphere). Increased cognitive capacity is achieved if individuals are lateralized in one direction or the other. The advantages and disadvantages of individual lateralization are discussed. This paper argues that directional, or population-level, lateralization, which occurs when most individuals in a species have the same direction of lateralization, provides no additional increase in cognitive capacity compared to individual lateralization although directional lateralization is advantageous in social interactions. Strength of lateralization is considered, including the disadvantage of being very strongly lateralized. The role of brain commissures is also discussed with consideration of cognitive capacity.

Given the sex differences evident in the prevalence of autism, there is an increased awareness of the importance of including females in autism research to determine sexual dimorphism and sex-specific treatments. Cannabinoids and endocannabinoid modulators have been proposed as potential novel treatments for autism-related symptoms; however, few studies to date have examined if these pharmacological agents elicit sex-specific effects. The aim of the present study was to use the valproic acid (VPA) model of autism to compare the behavioural responses of male and female rats and examine the effects of increasing endocannabinoid tone on the behavioural responses of VPA-exposed female rats. These data revealed that VPA-exposed male, but not female, rats exhibit reduced social responding in the three-chamber and olfactory habituation/dishabituation (OHD) test during adolescence. In comparison, VPA-exposed female, but not male, adolescent rats exhibited anxiety-like behaviour in the elevated plus maze (EPM) and open field test (OFT). In VPA-exposed female rats, increasing 2-AG levels augmented anxiety-like behaviour in the EPM and OFT, while increasing AEA levels reduced stress coping behaviour in the swim stress test. These data highlight sexual dimorphic behaviours in the VPA model and indicate that enhancing endocannabinoid levels may exacerbate negative affective behaviour in VPA-exposed females. Thus, considerations should be paid to the possible sex-specific effects of cannabinoids for the treatment of symptoms associated with autism.

One of the great challenges of the transition to the 1900s was the state of health of the inhabitants of Bukovina. Facing with all sorts of clinical cases, the physicians have tried to understand their mechanisms, identifying at the same time the biological and social dysfunctions or the cultural patterns that generated them. Some of these physicians would reveal to people that food is not just a blessing and that, under certain conditions, it can become the enemy of health, bringing with it misery and death. From 1880 to 1910, a large number of people, mostly adults, fell victim to pellagra, tuberculosis, and alcoholism. The campaigns to combat social diseases initiated by the personalities of the epoch, the press involvement, and the politicians' interrogations have become increasingly common. Equally, a different kind of medicine was called to affirm its ability to heal the illnesses caused by poverty and ignorance, helping and teaching the sick to avoid the adverse effects of their excesses.

In this paper, are described the basics of Social Based Mobility Model inspired by mobility of students alongside with Metrics for Evaluation of Social Behaviour in Mobility Models for MANET-DTN networks. These networks are mobile networks, where mobile devices are carried by humans. For simulation purposes, it is useful if mobility models designed to evaluate and tests performance of routing protocols are using mobility patterns and behaviour of humans. For these reasons, Students Social Based Mobility Model (SSBMM) was proposed as simulation tool with social mobility of nodes. To prove that SSBMM is really using social behaviour of nodes, Metrics for Evaluation of Social Behaviour in Mobility Models was designed. These metrics were adapted to the mobility of nodes in order to be able to reveal if the mobility of nodes in used mobility models is social. The performed simulations prove deviation of SSBMM from random mobility models. Described metrics reveal that SSBMM has strong social ties among nodes in comparison with random mobility models.

Social behaviour of healthy humans and its neural correlates have been extensively studied in social neuroscience and neuroeconomics. Whereas it is well established that several types of epilepsies, such as frontal lobe epilepsy, lead to social cognitive impairments, experimental evidence on how these translate into behavioural symptoms is scarce. Furthermore, it is unclear whether social cognitive or behavioural disturbances have an impact on therapy adherence, which is critical for effective disease management, but generally low in these patients. In order to investigate the relationship between social cognition, social behaviour, and therapy adherence in patients with frontal lobe epilepsies (FLE), we designed a study combining conventional neuropsychological with behavioural economic and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) methodology. Fifteen patients and 15 healthy controls played a prisoners' dilemma game (an established game to operationalize social behaviour) while undergoing fMRI. Additionally, social cognitive, basic neuropsychological variables, and therapy adherence were assessed. Our results implicate that social behaviour is indeed affected and can be quantified using neuroeconomic methods in patients with FLE. Impaired social behaviour in these patients might be a consequence of altered brain activation in the medial prefrontal cortex and play a role in low therapy adherence. Finally, this study serves as an example of how to integrate neuroeconomic methods in neurology.

Animal contests are natural interactions that occur to obtain or defend resources such as food and territory. Selection should favour individuals that can win contests with minimal costs in terms of energy expenditure or injuries. We hypothesized that social skills contribute to animals' assessment abilities in a contest situation and thereby will shorten contest duration. Animals were either raised in early life conditions stimulating the development of social skills, termed socialization or not (control). Contests between 342 pigs at eight weeks old (171 dyads) were studied for opponent assessment ability (using a game theoretical approach), examining duration and escalation, social behaviours performed, injuries and outcome. Contesting dyads were from the same treatment group and varied in body weight, a validated measure of resource holding potential (RHP). Socialized animals had shorter contests that were resolved with fewer injuries and they showed more ritualized display behaviour, consistent with mutual assessment. Furthermore, there was evidence of a novel form of opponent assessment in the socialized group revealed by a positive relationship between winner RHP and fight duration. In conclusion, social skills enabled more rapid establishment of dominance relationships at lower cost. Besides its evolutionary relevance, these findings may also contribute towards improving animal welfare.

Extreme weather conditions, like heatwave events, are becoming more frequent with climate change. Animals often modify their behaviour to cope with environmental changes and extremes. During heat stress conditions, individuals change their spatial behaviour and increase the use of shaded areas to assist with thermoregulation. Here, we suggest that for social species, these behavioural changes and ambient conditions have the potential to influence an individual's position in its social network, and the social network structure as a whole. We investigated whether heat stress conditions (quantified through the temperature humidity index) and the resulting use of shaded areas, influence the social network structure and an individual's connectivity in it. We studied this in free-ranging sheep in the arid zone of Australia, GPS-tracking all 48 individuals in a flock. When heat stress conditions worsened, individuals spent more time in the shade and the network was more connected (higher density) and less structured (lower modularity). Furthermore, we then identified the behavioural change that drove the altered network structure and showed that an individual's shade use behaviour affected its social connectivity. Interestingly, individuals with intermediate shade use were most strongly connected (degree, strength, betweenness), indicating their importance for the connectivity of the social network during heat stress conditions. Heat stress conditions, which are predicted to increase in severity and frequency due to climate change, influence resource use within the ecological environment. Importantly, our study shows that these heat stress conditions also affect the animal's social environment through the changed social network structure. Ultimately, this could have further flow on effects for social foraging and individual health since social structure drives information and disease transmission., Competing Interests: The authors have no conflict of interest to declare., (© 2024 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Background: Social robots are promising tools to improve the quality of life of children and youth living with anxiety and should be developed based on the priorities of end users. However, pathways to include young people in patient-oriented research, particularly in the overlap between technology and mental health, have been historically limited., Objective: In this work, we describe engagement with experts with lived experiences of paediatric anxiety in a social robotics research programme. We report the experiences of patient advisors in a co-creation process and identify considerations for other research groups looking to involve end users in technology development in the field of youth mental health., Design: We engaged individuals with a lived experience of paediatric anxiety (current, recent past, or from a parent perspective) using three different models over the course of three years. Two initial patient partners were involved during project development, eight were engaged as part of an advisory panel ('the League') during study development and data analysis and four contributed as ongoing collaborators in an advisory role. League members completed a preparticipation expectation survey and a postparticipation experience survey., Findings: Eight individuals from a range of anxiety-related diagnostic groups participated in the League as patient partners. Members were teenagers (n = 3), young adults aged 22-26 years who had connected with a youth mental health service as children within the past eight years (n = 3) or parents of children presently living with anxiety (n = 2). Preferred methods of communication, expectations and reasons for participating were collected. The League provided specific and actionable feedback on the design of workshops on the topic of social robotics, which was implemented. They reported that their experiences were positive and fairly compensated, but communication and sustained engagement over time were challenges. Issues of ethics and language related to patient-centred brain health technology research are discussed., Conclusions: There is an ethical imperative to meaningfully incorporate the voices of youth and young adults with psychiatric conditions in the development of devices intended to support their mental health and quality of life., Patient or Public Contribution: Six young people and two parents with lived experiences of paediatric anxiety participated in all stages of developing a research programme on social robotics to support paediatric mental health in a community context. They also provided input during the preparation of this manuscript., (© 2024 The Authors. Health Expectations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Domesticated animals have been developed by selecting desirable traits following the initial unconscious selection stage, and now exhibit phenotypes desired by humans. Tameness is a common behavioural trait found in all domesticated animals. At the same time, these domesticated animals exhibit a variety of morphological, behavioural, and physiological traits that differ from their wild counterparts of their ancestral species. These traits are collectively referred to as domestication syndrome. However, whether this phenomenon exists is debatable. Previously, selective breeding has been used to enhance active tameness, a motivation to interact with humans, in wild heterogeneous stock mice derived from eight wild inbred strains. In the current study, we used tame mice to study how selective breeding for active tameness affects behavioural and morphological traits. A series of behavioural and morphological analyses on mice showed an increased preference for social stimuli and a longer duration of engagement in non-aggressive behaviour. However, no differences were observed in exploratory or anxiety-related behaviours. Similarly, selection for tameness did not affect ultrasonic vocalisations in mice, and no changes were observed in known morphological traits associated with domestication syndrome. These results suggest that there may be a link between active tameness and sociability and provide insights into the relationship between tameness and other behaviours in the context of domestication., (© 2024 The Authors. Genes, Brain and Behavior published by International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

In the study of human behaviour, non-social targets are often used as a control for human-to-human interactions. However, the concept of anthropomorphisation suggests that human-like qualities can be attributed to non-human objects. This can prove problematic in psychological experiments, as computers are often used as non-social targets. Here, we assessed the degree of computer anthropomorphisation in a sequential and iterated prisoner's dilemma. Participants (N = 41) faced three opponents in the prisoner's dilemma paradigm-a human, a computer, and a roulette-all represented by images presented at the commencement of each round. Cooperation choice frequencies and transition probabilities were estimated within subjects, in rounds against each opponent. We found that participants anthropomorphised the computer opponent to a high degree, while the same was not found for the roulette (i.e. no cooperation choice difference vs human opponents; p = .99). The difference in participants' behaviour towards the computer vs the roulette was further potentiated by the precedent roulette round, in terms of both cooperation choice (61%, p = .007) and cooperation probability after reciprocated defection (79%, p = .007). This suggests that there could be a considerable anthropomorphisation bias towards computer opponents in social games, even for those without a human-like appearance. Conversely, a roulette may be a preferable non-social control when the opponent's abilities are not explicit or familiar., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Animal social and spatial behaviours are inextricably linked. Animal movements are driven by environmental factors and social interactions. Habitat structure and changing patterns of animal space use can also shape social interactions. Animals adjust their social and spatial behaviours to reduce the risk of offspring mortality. In territorial infanticidal species, two strategies are possible for males: they can stay close to offspring to protect them against rivals (infant-defence hypothesis) or patrol the territory more intensively to prevent rival intrusions (territorial-defence hypothesis). Here, we tested these hypotheses in African lions (Panthera leo) by investigating how males and females adjust their social and spatial behaviours in the presence of offspring. We combined datasets on the demography and movement of lions, collected between 2002 and 2016 in Hwange National Park (Zimbabwe), to document the presence of cubs (field observations) and the simultaneous movements of groupmates and competitors (GPS tracking). We showed a spatial response of lions to the presence of offspring, with females with cubs less likely to select areas close to waterholes or in the periphery of the territory than females without cubs. In contrast, these areas were more selected by males when there were cubs in the pride. We also found social responses. Males spent more time with females as habitat openness increased but the presence of cubs in the pride did not influence the average likelihood of observing males with females. Furthermore, rival males relocated further after an encounter with pride males when cubs were present in the prides, suggesting that the presence of cubs leads to a more vigorous repulsion of competitors. Males with cubs in their pride were more likely to interact with male competitors on the edge of the pride's home range and far from the waterholes, suggesting that they are particularly assiduous in detecting and repelling rival males during these periods. In general, the strategies to avoid infanticide exhibited by male lions supported the territorial-defence hypothesis. Our study contributes to answer the recent call for a behavioural ecology at the spatial-social interface., (© 2024 The Authors. Journal of Animal Ecology © 2024 British Ecological Society.)

A multitude of species engages in social interactions not only with their conspecifics but also with other species. Such interspecific interactions can be either positive, like helping, or negative, like aggressive behaviour. However, the physiological mechanisms of these behaviours remain unclear. Here, we manipulated the serotonin system, a well-known neurohormone for regulating intraspecific aggressive behaviour, to investigate its role in interspecific aggression. We tested whether serotonin blockade affects the aggressive behaviour of a coral reef fish species ( Ctenochaetus striatus ) that engages in mutualistic interactions with another species, the cleaner fish ( Labroides dimidiatus ). Although this mutualistic cleaning relationship may appear positive, cleaner fish do not always cooperate and remove ectoparasites from the other coral reef fish ("clients") but tend to cheat and bite the client's protective layer of mucus. Client fish thus often apply control mechanisms, like chasing, to deter their cleaner fish partners from cheating. Our findings show that blocking serotonin receptors 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C with ketanserin reduced the client fish's aggressive behaviour towards cleaner fish, but in the context where the latter did not cheat. These results are evidence of the involvement of serotonin in regulating aggressive behaviour at the between-species social interactions level. Yet, the direction of effect we found here is the opposite of previous findings using a similar experimental set-up and ecological context but with a different client fish species ( Scolopsis bilineatus ). Together, it suggests that serotonin's role in aggressive behaviour is complex, and at least in this mutualistic ecological context, its function is species-dependent. This warrants, to some extent, careful interpretations from single-species studies looking into the physiological mechanisms of social behaviour., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests., (© 2024 Staubli et al.)

The word zeitgeist refers to common perceptions shared in a given culture. Meanwhile, a defining feature of loneliness is feeling that one's views are not shared with others. Does loneliness correspond with deviating from the zeitgeist? Across two independent brain imaging datasets, lonely participants' neural representations of well-known celebrities strayed from group-consensus neural representations in the medial prefrontal cortex-a region that encodes and retrieves social knowledge (Studies 1 A/1B: N  = 40 each). Because communication fosters social connection by creating shared reality, we next asked whether lonelier participants' communication about well-known celebrities also deviates from the zeitgeist. Indeed, when a strong group consensus exists, lonelier individuals use idiosyncratic language to describe well-known celebrities (Study 2: N  = 923). Collectively, results support lonely individuals' feeling that their views are not shared. This suggests loneliness may not only reflect impoverished relationships with specific individuals, but also feelings of disconnection from prevalently shared views of contemporary culture., Competing Interests: Competing interestsThe authors declare no competing interests., (© The Author(s) 2024.)

There is an ever-increasing understanding of the cognitive mechanisms underlying how we process others' behaviours during social interactions. However, little is known about how people decide when to leave an interaction. Are these decisions shaped by alternatives in the environment - the opportunity-costs of connecting to other people? Here, participants chose when to leave partners who treated them with varying degrees of fairness, and connect to others, in social environments with different opportunity-costs. Across four studies we find people leave partners more quickly when opportunity-costs are high, both the average fairness of people in the environment and the effort required to connect to another partner. People's leaving times were accounted for by a fairness-adapted evidence accumulation model, and modulated by depression and loneliness scores. These findings demonstrate the computational processes underlying decisions to leave, and highlight atypical social time allocations as a marker of poor mental health., Competing Interests: Competing interestsThe authors declare no competing interests., (© The Author(s) 2024.)

Background: Autism spectrum disorders affect more than 1% of the population, impairing social communication and increasing stereotyped behaviours. A micro-deletion of the 16p11.2 BP4-BP5 chromosomic region has been identified in 1% of patients also displaying intellectual disabilities. In mouse models generated to understand the mechanisms of this deletion, learning and memory deficits were pervasive in most genetic backgrounds, while social communication deficits were only detected in some models., Methods: To complement previous studies, we itemized the social deficits in the mouse model of 16p11.2 deletion on a hybrid C57BL/6N × C3H. Pde6b + genetic background. We examined whether behavioural deficits were visible over long-term observation periods lasting several days and nights, to parallel everyday-life assessment of patients. We recorded the individual and social behaviours of mice carrying a heterozygous deletion of the homologous 16p11.2 chromosomic region (hereafter Del/+) and their wild-type littermates from both sexes over two or three consecutive nights during social interactions of familiar mixed-genotype quartets of males and of females, and of same-genotype unfamiliar female pairs., Results: We observed that Del/+ mice of both sexes increased significantly their locomotor activity compared to wild-type littermates. In the social domain, Del/+ mice of both sexes displayed widespread deficits, even more so in males than in females in quartets of familiar individuals. In pairs, significant perturbations of the organisation of the social communication and behaviours appeared in Del/+ females., Discussion: Altogether, this suggests that, over long recording periods, the phenotype of the 16p11.2 Del/+ mice was differently affected in the locomotor activity and the social domains and between the two sexes. These findings confirm the importance of testing models in long-term conditions to provide a comprehensive view of their phenotype that will refine the study of cellular and molecular mechanisms and complement pre-clinical targeted therapeutic trials., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision., (Copyright © 2023 Rusu, Chevalier, de Chaumont, Nalesso, Brault, Hérault and Ey.)

Natural variation can provide important insights into the genetic and environmental factors that shape social behaviour and its evolution. The sweat bee, Lasioglossum baleicum, is a socially flexible bee capable of producing both solitary and eusocial nests. We demonstrate that within a single nesting aggregation, soil temperatures are a strong predictor of the social structure of nests. Sites with warmer temperatures in the spring have a higher frequency of social nests than cooler sites, perhaps because warmer temperatures provide a longer reproductive window for those nests. To identify the molecular correlates of this behavioural variation, we generated a de novo genome assembly for L. baleicum, and we used transcriptomic profiling to compare adults and developing offspring from eusocial and solitary nests. We find that adult, reproductive females have similar expression profiles regardless of social structure in the nest, but that there are strong differences between reproductive females and workers from social nests. We also find substantial differences in the transcriptomic profiles of stage-matched pupae from warmer, social-biased sites compared to cooler, solitary-biased sites. These transcriptional differences are strongly predictive of adult reproductive state, suggesting that the developmental environment may set the stage for adult behaviours in L. baleicum. Together, our results help to characterize the molecular mechanisms shaping variation in social behaviour and highlight a potential role of environmental tuning during development as a factor shaping adult behaviour and physiology in this socially flexible bee., (© 2023 The Authors. Molecular Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Dolphins are known for their complex vocal communication, not least because of their capacity for acoustic plasticity. Paradoxically, we know little about their capacity for flexible vocal use. The difficulty in describing the behaviours performed underwater while vocalizing makes it difficult to analyse the contexts of emissions. Dolphins' main vocal categories are typically considered to be used for scanning the environment (clicks), agonistic encounters (burst pulses) and socio-affiliative interactions (whistles). Dolphins can also combine these categories in mixed vocal emissions, whose use remains unclear. To better understand how vocalizations are used, we simultaneously recorded vocal production and the associated behaviours by conducting underwater observations (N = 479 events) on a group of 7 bottlenose dolphins under human care. Our results showed a non-random association between vocal categories and behavioural contexts. Precisely, clicks were preferentially emitted during affiliative interactions and not during other social/solitary contexts, supporting a possible complementary communicative function. Burst pulses were associated to high arousal contexts (agonistic and social play), pinpointing on their use as an "emotively charged" signal. Whistles were related to solitary swimming and not preferentially produced in any social context. This questions whistles' functions and supports their potential role as a distant contact call. Finally, mixed vocalizations were especially found associated with sexual (bust pulse-whistle-click), solitary play (burst pulse-whistle) and affiliative (click-whistle) behaviours. Depending on the case, their emission seems to confirm, modify or refine the functions of their simple counterparts. These results open up new avenues of research into the contextual use of dolphin acoustic signals., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Background: Social disinhibition is becoming increasingly recognised in the neuropsychological literature as a complex and debilitating sequalae associated with acquired frontal lobe damage. Despite this, the term has been inconsistently defined and described in both clinical and research contexts. The purpose of this paper was to explore and examine the concept of social disinhibition in the context of brain injury and other organic neurological conditions., Method: A literature search for articles published in the English language from journal inception to June 2021 was conducted using MEDLINE, PsycInfo, Embase, CINAHL and Web of Science. A 'concept analysis' was conducted on the identified literature using Walker & Avant's (2019) framework., Results: The analysis suggested that while several terms are often used interchangeably with social disinhibition, including impulsivity and behavioural dysregulation, these terms may be differentiated and defined separately within the broader domain of 'behaviours of concern'. Attributes, antecedents and consequences of social disinhibition were also identified and discussed., Conclusions: Clarifying the concept of social disinhibition has important implications in both clinical and research contexts, including increased understanding of the behaviours, more accurate estimates of incidence and prevalence, and the development and implementation of targeted rehabilitation programmes.

The evolution of group living transformed the history of animal life on earth, yielding substantial selective benefits. Yet, without overcoming fundamental challenges such as how to coordinate movements with conspecifics, animals cannot maintain cohesion, and coordination is thus a prerequisite for the evolution of sociality in nonstationary animals. Although it has been considered that animal groups must coordinate the timing and direction of movements, coordinating speed is also essential to prevent the group from splitting. We investigated speed consensus in homing pigeon, Columba livia , flocks using high-resolution GPS. Despite observable differences in average solo speed (which was positively correlated with bird mass) compromises of up to 6% from the preferred solo speed were made to reach consensus in flocks. These results match theory which suggests that groups fly at an intermediate of solo speeds, which suggests speed averaging. By virtue of minimizing extreme compromises, speed averaging can maximize selective benefits across the group, suggesting shared consensus for group speed could be ubiquitous across taxa. Nevertheless, despite group-wide advantages, contemporary flight models have suggested unequal energetic costs in favour of individuals with intermediate body mass/preferred speed (hence the 'Goldilocks principle'). • Moving groups must reach speed consensus to retain cohesion and grouping benefits. • We investigated speed in solo and group flights of homing pigeons using GPS. • Bird mass correlated with solo speed; groups flew at an average of solo speeds. • Averaged (or shared) consensus may be an optimal solution for individuals. • Nevertheless, average group speeds may favour pigeons of intermediate body mass. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adaptive value of close social bonds and social networks has been demonstrated in a variety of vertebrate taxa. While the effect of predators on populations is well established, disturbance by humans is increasingly being identified as affecting the behaviour and reproductive success of animals and can have significant impacts on their survival. We used a concurrent analysis of two adjacent giraffe Giraffa camelopardalis populations in Kenya to determine whether human activities and high predation affected their social networks. One study site was a premier tourist destination with a high volume of human activity in the form of tourist traffic and lodge infrastructure, alongside a high density of lions which preferentially prey on giraffe calves; the other was a private wildlife conservancy with minimal human activity and no lion population. Giraffes in both networks showed preferred associations and avoidances of other individuals, which were independent of space use. Bond strength was lower in the population exposed to high levels of human activity and lions, and the network had lower density and clustering, and shorter path lengths, suggesting that it was more fragmented. We suggest that human activity and predator density may influence the patterns of social interactions in giraffes and highlight the importance of understanding the impact of tourism and management on the survival and success of wild animal populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 600 Myr of evolutionary divergence between vertebrates and invertebrates is associated with considerable neuroanatomical variation both across and within these lineages. By contrast, valence encoding is an important behavioural trait that is evolutionarily conserved across vertebrates and invertebrates, and enables individuals to distinguish between positive (potentially beneficial) and negative (potentially harmful) situations. We tested the hypothesis that social interactions of positive and negative valence are modularly encoded in the honeybee brain (i.e. encoded in different cellular subpopulations) as in vertebrate brains. In vertebrates, neural activation patterns are distributed across distinct parts of the brain, suggesting that discrete circuits encode positive or negative stimuli. Evidence for this hypothesis would suggest a deep homology of neural organization between insects and vertebrates for valence encoding, despite vastly different brain sizes. Alternatively, overlapping localization of valenced social information in the brain would imply a 're-use' of circuitry in response to positive and negative social contexts, potentially to overcome the energetic constraints of a tiny brain. We used immediate early gene expression to map positively and negatively valenced social interactions in the brain of the western honeybee Apis mellifera. We found that the valence of a social signal is represented by distinct anatomical subregions of the mushroom bodies, an invertebrate sensory neuropil associated with social behaviour, multimodal sensory integration, learning and memory. Our results suggest that the modularization of valenced social information in the brain is a fundamental property of neuroanatomical organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most sociologists are not content with merely relating macrosocial phenomena to preceding macrosocial causes in their causal explanations of social phenomena. Instead they are seeking to provide (non‐reductive) microfoundations with which they can corroborate and make understandable the connection between macrosocial phenomena. In order to do so a theory (or theories) of human action is required. One such theory, rational choice theory (RCT), has long been viewed with strong suspicion in sociology. I show such suspicion to be partially justified. RCT cannot be a general theory of social behaviour. Nonetheless, there are important insights in various versions of RCT that should not be discarded. In order to improve upon RCT and move toward a more unified or integrative theory of action social‐psychological research has to be taken note of. I demonstrate how dual‐process theories and the research on heuristics can help sociologists move beyond RCT without contradicting some of its more basic insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an artefactual field experiment, this paper tests the long-term implications of living in a specific economic system on individual dishonesty. By comparing cheating behaviour across individuals from the former socialist East of Germany with those of the capitalist West of Germany, we examine behavioural differences within a single country. We find long-term implications of living in a specific economic system for individual dishonesty when social interactions are possible: participants with an East German background cheated significantly more on an abstract die-rolling task than those with a West German background, but only when exposed to the enduring system of former West Germany. Moreover, our results indicate that the longer individuals had experienced socialist East Germany, the more likely they were to cheat on the behavioural task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social animals interact frequently with conspecifics, and their behaviour is influenced by social context, environmental cues and the behaviours of interaction partners, allowing for adaptive, flexible adjustments to social encounters. This flexibility can be limited by part of the behavioural variation being genetically determined. Furthermore, behaviours can be genetically correlated, potentially constraining independent evolution. Understanding social behaviour thus requires carefully disentangling genetic, environmental, maternal and social sources of variations as well as the correlation structure between behaviours. Here, we assessed heritability, maternal, common environment and social effects of eight social behaviours in Neolamprologus pulcher, a cooperatively breeding cichlid. We bred wild‐caught fish in a paternal half‐sibling design and scored ability to defend a resource against conspecifics, to integrate into a group and the propensity to help defending the group territory ("helping behaviour"). We assessed genetic, social and phenotypic correlations within clusters of behaviours predicted to be functionally related, namely "competition," "aggression," "aggression‐sociability," "integration" and "integration‐help." Helping behaviour and two affiliative behaviours were heritable, whereas there was little evidence for a genetic basis in all other traits. Phenotypic social effects explained part of the variation in a sociable and a submissive behaviour, but there were no maternal or common environment effects. Genetic and phenotypic correlation within clusters was mostly positive. A group's social environment influenced covariances of social behaviours. Genetic correlations were similar in magnitude but usually exceeding the phenotypic ones, indicating that conclusions about the evolution of social behaviours in this species could be provisionally drawn from phenotypic data in cases where data for genetic analyses are unobtainable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identity signals have been studied for over 50 years but, and somewhat remarkably, there is no consensus as to how to quantify individuality in animal signals. While there is a variety of different metrics to quantify individuality, these methods remain un‐validated and the relationships between them unclear.We contrasted three univariate and four multivariate identity metrics (and their different computational variants) and evaluated their performance on simulated and empirical datasets.Of the metrics examined, Beecher's information statistic (HS) performed closest to theoretical expectations and requirements for an ideal identity metric. It could be also easily and reliably converted into the commonly used discrimination score (and vice versa). Although Beecher's information statistic is not entirely independent of study sampling, this problem can be considerably lessened by reducing the number of parameters or by increasing the number of individuals in the analysis.Because it is easily calculated, has superior performance, can be used to quantify identity information in single variable or in a complete signal and because it indicates the number of individuals who can be discriminated given a set of measurements, we recommend that individuality should be quantified using Beecher's information statistic in future studies. Consistent use of Beecher's information statistic could enable meaningful comparisons and integration of results across different studies of individual identity signals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While extensive research has focused on how social interactions evolve, the fitness consequences of the neuroendocrine mechanisms underlying these interactions have rarely been documented, especially in the wild. Here, we measure how the neuroendocrine mechanisms underlying male behaviour affect mating success and sperm competition in the ocellated wrasse (Symphodus ocellatus). In this species, males exhibit three alternative reproductive types. "Nesting males" provide parental care, defend territories and form cooperative associations with unrelated "satellites," who cheat by sneaking fertilizations but help by reducing sperm competition from "sneakers" who do not cooperate or provide care. To measure the fitness consequences of the mechanisms underlying these social interactions, we used "phenotypic engineering" that involved administering an androgen receptor antagonist (flutamide) to wild, free‐living fish. Nesting males treated with flutamide shifted their aggression from sneakers to satellite males and experienced decreased submissiveness by sneaker males (which correlated with decreased nesting male mating success). The preoptic area (POA), a region controlling male reproductive behaviours, exhibited dramatic down‐regulation of androgen receptor (AR) and vasotocin 1a receptor (V1aR) mRNA following experimental manipulation of androgen signalling. We did not find a direct effect of the manipulation on male mating success, paternity or larval production. However, variation in neuroendocrine mechanisms generated by the experimental manipulation was significantly correlated with changes in behaviour and mating success: V1aR expression was negatively correlated with satellite‐directed aggression, and expression of its ligand arginine vasotocin (AVT) was positively correlated with courtship and mating success, thus revealing the potential for sexual selection on these mechanisms. see also the Perspective by Fisher [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]