Mammalian social systems: Structure and function

Mammalian societies are complex socio-ecological systems controlled by the interactions of numerous internal constraints and external factors. We present a simple model describing these systems functionally in terms of the adaptive behavioural strategies for resource exploitation, predation avoidance and mating and rearing of young to maturity shown by the individuals that comprise them. The relations between species-specific limitations on the range of potential individual social behaviour and the environmental variables to which the system is responsive are analysed and hypotheses from correlational and analytical field studies examined. We advocate the continued development of sophisticated systems-analytical approaches to societal analysis taking into account the contrasting informational provenance of factors of different types. This is preferred to either an over-emphasis on environmental determination or excessively formalised neo-darwinian modelling based on assumptions from genetics and selection theory alone.