Sociality
Sociality describes animal grouping and cooperative behavior.
Sociality is the degree to which individuals in an animal population tend to associate in social groups and form cooperative societies. It is a survival response to evolutionary pressures, such as when a mother wasp stays near her larvae to protect them from parasites. The most fundamental characteristic of animal sociality is parental investment, which is any expenditure of resources to benefit one's offspring. Animals that care for their young but show no other sociality traits are called subsocial, while those exhibiting a high degree of sociality are termed social animals. The highest recognized degree of sociality is eusociality, which includes overlapping adult generations, reproductive division of labor, cooperative care of young, and, in refined cases, a biological caste system.
- field
- Sociobiology, Ethology
- known_for
- Classification of sociality levels from solitary to eusocial
- key_concepts
- Parental investment, subsociality, presociality, eusociality
- related_taxa
- Vespidae wasps, Hymenoptera, Blattodea, naked mole-rat, Damaraland mole-rat, Synalpheus regalis
Lore & Background
Sociality is a survival response to evolutionary pressures. For example, when a mother wasp stays near her larvae in the nest, parasites are less likely to eat the larvae. Biologists suspect that pressures from parasites and other predators selected this behavior in wasps of the family Vespidae. This wasp behavior demonstrates the most fundamental characteristic of animal sociality: parental investment, which detracts from a parent's capacity to invest in future reproduction and aid to kin.
Reader's Guide
The concept of sociality is central to understanding animal behavior and evolution. It ranges from solitary animals, such as the jaguar, which associate only for courtship and mating, to eusocial species like ants, bees, and termites, which exhibit overlapping generations, cooperative care, and reproductive division of labor. The classification system for presociality, developed by Charles D. Eusociality has evolved in several insect orders and has been observed in some crustaceans, such as Synalpheus regalis snapping shrimp. The debate over whether a species must have an irreversibly sterile caste to be considered eusocial remains unresolved, with implications for classifying mammals like naked mole-rats and even humans.
Did You Know?
- Sociality is a survival response to evolutionary pressures, such as parasites selecting for maternal care in wasps of the family Vespidae.
- The highest degree of sociality recognized by sociobiologists is eusociality, which includes overlapping adult generations, reproductive division of labor, and cooperative care of young.
- Solitary-but-social animals forage separately but may share nests or sleeping locations; examples include mouse lemurs, lorises, and orangutans.
More in Animal Biology And Behavior 1-21
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