Social organisation in animals takes many forms. It includes assemblages of territorial
animals, dominance hierarchies and social groups, among other things. The basic tenet that …

It has often been assumed by those studying animal behaviour that the social system
adopted by a species is a fixed product of natural selection. There is now an interesting body …

Highlights•Social cognition in animals relies on a suite of increasingly complex skills.•These
skills are targets of selection.•They reflect the selective pressures acting on individuals in …

Farm animals are social species with a strong tendency to form groups. Living in groups has
associated costs and benefits. The costs refer mostly to competition for food, or access to …

Numerous studies in group-living animals with stable compositions have demonstrated the
complex and dynamic nature of social behaviour. Empirical studies occasionally provide …

Most vertebrates, including humans, are gregarious to a certain degree. They tend to form
shoals, flocks, coveys, herds, bands, packs, parties or colonies (hereafter: groups) of …

Approaches to sociality have, in the past, focused either on group typologies or on the
functional aspects of relationships (mate choice, parental investment decisions). In contrast …

Many group-living animals show social preferences for relatives, familiar conspecifics or
individuals of similar attributes such as size, personality or sex. How such preferences could …

Most animals must learn some of the behaviours in their repertoire, and some must learn
most. Although learning is often thought of as an individual exercise, in nature much …

The scientific study of networks-computer, social, and biological-has received an enormous
amount of interest in recent years. However, the network approach has been applied to the …