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Updated: Feb 10, 2026

A Complex Diving-For-Food Task to Investigate Social Organization and Interactions in Rats
Published on: May 8, 2021
Social complexity and kinship in animal societies
Dieter Lukas1, Tim Clutton-Brock1
1Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, CB2 3EJ, Cambridge, UK.
Abstract:
Studies of eusocial invertebrates regard complex societies as those where there is a clear division of labour and extensive cooperation between breeders and helpers. In contrast, studies of social mammals identify complex societies as those where differentiated social relationships influence access to resources and reproductive opportunities. We show here that, while traits associated with social complexity of the first kind occur in social mammals that live in groups composed of close relatives, traits associated with the complexity of social relationships occur where average kinship between female group members is low. These differences in the form of social complexity appear to be associated with variation in brain size and probably reflect contrasts in the extent of conflicts of interest between group members. Our results emphasise the limitations of any unitary concept of social complexity and show that variation in average kinship between group members has far-reaching consequences for animal societies.
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