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Updated: Nov 10, 2025

Conditions Affecting Social Space in Drosophila melanogaster
Published on: November 5, 2015
Differentiated Social Relationships and the Pace-of-Life-History
Matthew J Silk1, David J Hodgson2
1Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter Penryn Campus, Penryn, Cornwall, UK; Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter Penryn Campus, Penryn, Cornwall, UK.
Abstract:
When selection is imposed by both social and ecological environments, the costs and benefits of social relationships can depend on life-history strategy. We argue that the formation and maintenance of differentiated social relationships will prevail in species and individuals with slow life histories. Social behaviours that benefit survival can promote slower life histories. Meanwhile, longer lifespan promotes the development of strong and stable social bonds by allowing fitness payoffs to be postponed. Differentiated social behaviours should be favoured for fast life histories only when they promote the rate of reproduction. Finally, associations between life-history strategies and other traits (e.g., personality) provide a mechanism to drive inter-individual variation in social relationships, making life-history important for sociality across taxonomic scales.
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