ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2022
Within-individual changes reveal increasing social selectivity with age in rhesus macaques.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 44 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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44 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Ageing effects of social environments in 'non-social' insects.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Pooled it
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- Spatio-temporal patterns of juvenile common ravens integrating into a free-flying non-breeder flock.iScience · 2026Article
- Multimorbidity and animal models.Animal models and experimental medicine · 2025Review
- The physics of sociality: Investigating patterns of social resource distribution among theiScience · 2025Article
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- How can we use social network analysis to better understand Chimpanzee and Gorilla sociality and communication?Animal cognition · 2025Review
- Behavioral sex differences in the developmental emergence and selectivity of partner preferences in prairie voles.Hormones and behavior · 2025Article
- Prevalence and characterization of gastrointestinal and ectoparasites in long-tailed macaques (Veterinary world · 2025Article
- MacaqueNet: Advancing comparative behavioural research through large-scale collaboration.The Journal of animal ecology · 2025Article
- A Natural Disaster Exacerbates and Redistributes Disease Risk Among Free-Ranging Macaques by Altering Social Structure.Ecology letters · 2025Article
- Associations between social behaviour and proinflammatory immune activation are modulated by age in a free-ranging primate population.Animal behaviour · 2025Article
- Linking energy availability, movement and sociality in a wild primate (Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Social ageing can protect against infectious disease in a group-living primate.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Age-dependent shaping of the social environment in a long-lived seabird: a quantitative genetic approach.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Understanding age and society using natural populations.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- The ecology of ageing in wild societies: linking age structure and social behaviour.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Review
- Divergent age-related changes in parasite infection occur independently of behaviour and demography in a wild ungulate.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Social ageing and higher-order interactions: social selectiveness can enhance older individuals' capacity to transmit knowledge.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
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Abstract
Accumulating evidence in humans and other mammals suggests older individuals tend to have smaller social networks. Uncovering the cause of these declines can inform how changes in social relationships with age affect health and fitness in later life. While age-based declines in social networks have been thought to be detrimental, physical and physiological limitations associated with age may lead older individuals to adjust their social behavior and be more selective in partner choice. Greater selectivity with age has been shown in humans, but the extent to which this phenomenon occurs across the animal kingdom remains an open question. Using longitudinal data from a population of rhesus macaques on Cayo Santiago, we provide compelling evidence in a nonhuman animal for within-individual increases in social selectivity with age. Our analyses revealed that adult female macaques actively reduced the size of their networks as they aged and focused on partners previously linked to fitness benefits, including kin and partners to whom they were strongly and consistently connected earlier in life. Females spent similar amounts of time socializing as they aged, suggesting that network shrinkage does not result from lack of motivation or ability to engage, nor was this narrowing driven by the deaths of social partners. Furthermore, females remained attractive companions and were not isolated by withdrawal of social partners. Taken together, our results provide rare empirical evidence for social selectivity in nonhumans, suggesting that patterns of increasing selectivity with age may be deeply rooted in primate evolution.
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