Taxon matters: promoting integrative studies of social behavior: NESCent Working Group on Integrative Models of Vertebrate Sociality: Evolution, Mechanisms, and Emergent Properties

Abstract

The neural and molecular mechanisms underlying social behavior - including their functional significance and evolution - can only be fully understood using data obtained under multiple social, environmental, and physiological conditions. Understanding the complexity of social behavior requires integration across levels of analysis in both laboratory and field settings. However, there is currently a disconnect between the systems studied in the laboratory versus the field. We argue that recent conceptual and technical advances provide exciting new opportunities to close this gap by making non-model organisms accessible to modern approaches in both laboratory and nature.

Keywords: ecology; evolution; integration; model species; neural and endocrine mechanisms; sociality.