1. Heterogeneity in the ability of hosts to transmit pathogens is among the most fundamental
concepts in disease dynamics and has major implications for disease control strategies. 2 …

Highlights•Aggression in adults is shaped by early life experiences and other
factors.•Dominance hierarchies limit conflict escalation and maintain social stability.• …

This paper introduces a theme issue presenting the latest developments in research on the
impacts of sociality on health and fitness. The articles that follow cover research on societies …

In animals, sex differences in immunity are proposed to shape variation in infection
prevalence and intensity among individuals in a population, with females typically expected …

Social status is a critical factor determining health outcomes in human and nonhuman social
species. In social hierarchies with reproductive skew, individuals compete to monopolize …

The disease costs of sociality have largely been understood through the link between group
size and transmission. However, infectious disease spread is driven primarily by the social …

Social status has been associated with health consequences, although the mechanisms by
which status affects health are relatively unknown. At the physiological level, many studies …

The study of parasitism in socially living organisms shows that social group size correlates
with the risk of infection, but group structure–and thus differences in contact networks–is …

The notion of dominance is ubiquitous across the animal kingdom, wherein some
species/groups such relationships are strictly hierarchical and others are not. Modern …

Social interactions are a ubiquitous feature of the lives of vertebrate species. These may be
cooperative or competitive, and shape the dynamics of social systems, with profound effects …