Kinship composition in mammals

Abstract

Understanding the evolution of group-living and cooperation requires information on who animals live and cooperate with. Animals can live with kin, non-kin or both, and kinship structure can influence the benefits and costs of group-living and the evolution of within-group cooperation. One aspect of kinship structure is kinship composition, i.e. a group-level attribute of the presence of kin and/or non-kin dyads in groups. Despite its putative importance, the kinship composition of mammalian groups has yet to be characterized. Here, we use the published literature to build an initial kinship composition dataset in mammals, laying the groundwork for future work in the field. In roughly half of the 18 species in our sample, individuals lived solely with same-sex kin, and, in the other half, individuals lived with related and unrelated individuals of the same sex. These initial results suggest that it is not rare for social mammals to live with unrelated individuals of the same sex, highlighting the importance of considering indirect and direct fitness benefits as co-drivers of the evolution of sociality. We hope that our initial dataset and insights will spur the study of kinship structure and sociality towards new exciting avenues.