Deconstructing sociality, social evolution and relevant nonapeptide functions

Summary: Although behavioral neuroendocrinologists often discuss “sociality” as a unitary variable, the term encompasses a wide diversity of behaviors that do not evolve in a linked fashion across species. Thus grouping, monogamy, paternal care, cooperative breeding/alloparental care, and various other forms of social contact are evolutionarily labile and evolve in an almost cafeteria-like fashion, indicating that relevant neural mechanisms are at least partially dissociable. This poses a challenge for the study of the nonapeptides (vasopressin, oxytocin, and homologous neuropeptides), because nonapeptides are known to modulate all of these aspects of sociality in one species or another. Hence, we may expect substantial diversity in the behavioral functions of nonapeptides across speci...

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