Evidence map›Paper›PMID 35506231›Full record

ReviewProceedings. Biological sciences2022

The ecology of wealth inequality in animal societies.

Eli D Strauss, Daizaburo Shizuka

Abstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
13citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

13 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Metabolic inequality in microbial communities.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026
    Article
  3. Heterogeneous conditions and power law robustness in intergenerational resource transfers.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Reproductive inequality among males in the genusPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023
    Review
  8. Demographic turnover can be a leading driver of hierarchy dynamics, and social inheritance modifies its effects.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023
    Article
  9. Mechanisms of equality and inequality in mammalian societies.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023
    Article
  10. Toward an evolutionary ecology of (in)equality.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023
    Article
  11. Inequalities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians seen through the lens of oral health: time to change focus.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023
    Review
  12. Challenges of mismatching timescales in longitudinal studies of collective behaviour.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023
    Article
  13. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Eli D StraussDepartment of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour, Konstanz, Germany.ORCID 0000-0003-3413-1642
Daizaburo ShizukaSchool of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-0478-6309

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Individuals vary in their access to resources, social connections and phenotypic traits, and a central goal of evolutionary biology is to understand how this variation arises and influences fitness. Parallel research on humans has focused on the causes and consequences of variation in material possessions, opportunity and health. Central to both fields of study is that unequal distribution of wealth is an important component of social structure that drives variation in relevant outcomes. Here, we advance a research framework and agenda for studying wealth inequality within an ecological and evolutionary context. This ecology of inequality approach presents the opportunity to reintegrate key evolutionary concepts as different dimensions of the link between wealth and fitness by (i) developing measures of wealth and inequality as taxonomically broad features of societies, (ii) considering how feedback loops link inequality to individual and societal outcomes, (iii) exploring the ecological and evolutionary underpinnings of what makes some societies more unequal than others, and (iv) studying the long-term dynamics of inequality as a central component of social evolution. We hope that this framework will facilitate a cohesive understanding of inequality as a widespread biological phenomenon and clarify the role of social systems as central to evolutionary biology.

Indexed as

Biological EvolutionAnimalsPhenotypeintergenerational wealth transmissionniche constructionsocial evolutionsocial mobilitystatus-seeking behaviourwealth inequality

Identifiers

PMID35506231
PMCPMC9065979

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.