Finka Lauren R
Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, 4 Battersea Park Rd, Nine Elms, London SW8 4AA, UK.
Brackenhurst Campus, School of Animal, Rural and Environmental Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, Nottinghamshire NG25 0QF, UK.
Animals (Basel). 2022 Jan 25;12(3):298. doi: 10.3390/ani12030298.
Sociality can be broadly defined as the ability and tendency of individuals to reside in social groups with either conspecifics and/or other species. More specifically, sociability relates to the ability and tendency of individuals to display affiliative behaviours in such contexts. The domestic cat is one of the most globally popular companion animals and occupies a diverse range of lifestyles. Despite an arguably short period of domestication from an asocial progenitor, the domestic cat demonstrates an impressive capacity for both intra- and interspecific sociality and sociability. At the same time, however, large populations of domestic cats maintain various degrees of behavioural and reproductive autonomy and are capable of occupying solitary lifestyles away from humans and/or conspecifics. Within social groups, individuals can also vary in their tendency to engage in both affiliative and agonistic interactions, and this interindividual variation is present within free-living populations as well as those managed in confined environments by humans. Considerable scientific enquiry has focused on cats' social behaviour towards humans (and conspecifics to a much lesser extent) in this latter context. Ontogeny and human selection, in addition to a range of proximate factors including social and environmental parameters and individual cat and human characteristics, have been highlighted as important moderators of cats' sociability. Such factors may have important consequences regarding individuals' adaptability to the diverse range of lifestyles that they may occupy. Where limitations to individuals' social capacities do not enable sufficient adaption, compromises to their wellbeing may occur. This is most pertinent for cats managed by humans, given that the physical and social parameters of the cats' environment are primarily dictated by people, but that positive human-selection for traits that enhance cats' adaptability to such lifestyles appears to be limited. However, limitations in the availability and quality of evidence and equivocal findings may impede the current understanding of the role of certain factors in relation to cat sociability and associations with cat wellbeing, although such literature gaps also present important opportunities for further study. This review aims to summarise what is currently known about the various factors that may influence domestic cats' sociality and sociability towards both humans and conspecifics, with a predominant focus on cats managed by humans in confined environments. Current limitations, knowledge gaps, and implications for cat wellbeing are also discussed.
社会性可以被宽泛地定义为个体与同种个体和/或其他物种共同生活在社会群体中的能力和倾向。更具体地说，社交性涉及个体在这种情境下表现出亲和行为的能力和倾向。家猫是全球最受欢迎的伴侣动物之一，拥有多种多样的生活方式。尽管家猫从非社会性的祖先驯化而来的时间可能较短，但它展现出了令人印象深刻的种内和种间社交及社交性能力。然而，与此同时，大量的家猫保持着不同程度的行为和繁殖自主性，并且能够远离人类和/或同种个体过独居生活。在社会群体中，个体在参与亲和互动和争斗互动的倾向上也可能存在差异，这种个体间的差异在自由生活的猫群以及人类在封闭环境中管理的猫群中都存在。在后者这种情境下，大量科学研究聚焦于猫对人类的社会行为（对同种个体的研究程度要低得多）。个体发育和人类选择，以及一系列包括社会和环境参数以及猫和人类个体特征在内的近因因素，都被强调为猫社交性的重要调节因素。这些因素可能对个体适应它们可能拥有的多种多样生活方式的能力产生重要影响。当个体的社交能力受限而无法实现充分适应时，它们的幸福感可能会受到影响。这对由人类管理的猫来说最为相关，因为猫的环境的物理和社会参数主要由人类决定，但人类对增强猫对这种生活方式适应性的特征的正向选择似乎有限。然而，证据的可得性和质量的限制以及模棱两可的研究结果可能会阻碍目前对某些因素在猫社交性以及与猫幸福感关联方面作用的理解，尽管这些文献空白也为进一步研究提供了重要机遇。本综述旨在总结目前已知的可能影响家猫对人类和同种个体的社会性及社交性的各种因素，主要关注人类在封闭环境中管理的猫。还讨论了当前的局限性、知识空白以及对猫幸福感的影响。
