Kappeler Peter M, Cremer Sylvia, Nunn Charles L
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Unit, German Primate Center, Göttingen, Germany Department of Sociobiology/Anthropology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
IST Austria (Institute of Science and Technology Austria), Klosterneuburg, Austria.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2015 May 26;370(1669). doi: 10.1098/rstb.2014.0116.
This paper introduces a theme issue presenting the latest developments in research on the impacts of sociality on health and fitness. The articles that follow cover research on societies ranging from insects to humans. Variation in measures of fitness (i.e. survival and reproduction) has been linked to various aspects of sociality in humans and animals alike, and variability in individual health and condition has been recognized as a key mediator of these relationships. Viewed from a broad evolutionary perspective, the evolutionary transitions from a solitary lifestyle to group living have resulted in several new health-related costs and benefits of sociality. Social transmission of parasites within groups represents a major cost of group living, but some behavioural mechanisms, such as grooming, have evolved repeatedly to reduce this cost. Group living also has created novel costs in terms of altered susceptibility to infectious and non-infectious disease as a result of the unavoidable physiological consequences of social competition and integration, which are partly alleviated by social buffering in some vertebrates. Here, we define the relevant aspects of sociality, summarize their health-related costs and benefits, and discuss possible fitness measures in different study systems. Given the pervasive effects of social factors on health and fitness, we propose a synthesis of existing conceptual approaches in disease ecology, ecological immunology and behavioural neurosciences by adding sociality as a key factor, with the goal to generate a broader framework for organismal integration of health-related research.
本文介绍了一个主题特刊，展示了社会性对健康和体能影响研究的最新进展。后续文章涵盖了从昆虫到人类等不同社会群体的研究。在人类和动物中，体能指标（即生存和繁殖）的变化都与社会性的各个方面相关联，而个体健康和状况的差异被认为是这些关系的关键调节因素。从广泛的进化角度来看，从独居生活方式到群体生活的进化转变带来了一些与健康相关的新的社会性成本和益处。群体内寄生虫的社会传播是群体生活的一项主要成本，但一些行为机制，如梳理毛发，已经多次进化以降低这一成本。由于社会竞争和融合不可避免的生理后果，群体生活在感染性和非感染性疾病易感性改变方面也产生了新的成本，在一些脊椎动物中，社会缓冲在一定程度上缓解了这些成本。在这里，我们定义社会性的相关方面，总结其与健康相关的成本和益处，并讨论不同研究系统中可能的体能衡量指标。鉴于社会因素对健康和体能的普遍影响，我们建议通过将社会性作为关键因素，综合疾病生态学、生态免疫学和行为神经科学中现有的概念方法，目标是为与健康相关的研究生成一个更广泛的生物体整合框架。
