Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience www.frontiersin.org June 2010 | Volume 4 | Article 34 | 1BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCEReview ARticlepublished: 28 June 2010doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2010.00034individuals. Sociality (broadly defined as group living) presents an apparent evolutionary paradox in that individuals may incur fitness costs by engaging in these interactions (Alexander, 1974; Griffin and West, 2002). Collectively, these phenomena form the basis for some of the most intricate and intriguing societies observed in nature (Wilson, 1975). In humans, social relationships are essential components of well-being (House et al., 1988), and may lead to both positive and negative health outcomes (Berkman, 1984; Uchino et al., 1996).IntroductIonSocial behavior is comprised of interactions among conspecifics and results in relationships of variable form, duration, and function. Social interactions provide the foundation for a broad array of behavioral phenomena, including many of the complex forms of cooperation and conflict that are of particular interest to behavioral biologists (Nowak, 2006). For example, group living and communal rearing of young are forms of sociality that arise from social interactions among Toward an integrative understanding of social behavior: new models and new opportunitiesDaniel T. Blumstein1*, Luis A. Ebensperger2, Loren D. Hayes3*, Rodrigo A. Vásquez4, Todd H. Ahern5, Joseph Robert Burger3†, Adam G. Dolezal6, Andy Dosmann7, Gabriela González-Mariscal8, Breanna N. Harris9, Emilio A. Herrera10, Eileen A. Lacey11, Jill Mateo7, Lisa A. McGraw12, Daniel Olazábal13, Marilyn Ramenofsky14, Dustin R. Rubenstein15, Samuel A. Sakhai16, Wendy Saltzman9, Cristina Sainz-Borgo10, Mauricio Soto-Gamboa17, Monica L. Stewart3, Tina W. Wey1, John C. Wingfield14 and Larry J. Young51 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA2 CASEB and Departamento de Ecología, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, P. Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile3 Department of Biology, University of Louisiana at Monroe, Monroe, LA, USA4 Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity, Departamento de Ciencias Ecologicas, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile5 Department of Psychiatry, Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, Yerkes National Primate Center, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA6 School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA7 Committee on Evolutionary Biology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA8 Centro de Investigacion en Reproduccion Animal, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala, México9 Department of Biology, University of California Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA10 Departamento de Estudios Ambientales, Universidad Simón Bolívar, Caracas, Venezuela11 Department of Integrative Biology and Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA12 Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA13 Departamento de Fisiología, Facultad de Medicina, Montevideo, Uruguay14 Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior, University of California Davis, CA, USA15 Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA16 Department of Psychology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA17 Instituto de Ecología y Evolución, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, ChileSocial interactions among conspecifics are a fundamental and adaptively significant component of the biology of numerous species. Such interactions give rise to group living as well as many of the complex forms of cooperation and conflict that occur within animal groups. Although previous conceptual models have focused on the ecological causes and fitness consequences of variation in social interactions, recent developments in endocrinology, neuroscience, and molecular genetics offer exciting opportunities to develop more integrated research programs that will facilitate new insights into the physiological causes and consequences of social variation. Here, we propose an integrative framework of social behavior that emphasizes relationships between ultimate-level function and proximate-level mechanism, thereby providing a foundation for exploring the full diversity of factors that underlie variation in social interactions, and ultimately sociality. In addition to identifying new model systems for the study of human psychopathologies, this framework provides a mechanistic basis for predicting how social behavior will change in response to environmental variation. We argue that the study of non-model organisms is essential for implementing this integrative model of social behavior because such species can be studied simultaneously in the lab and field, thereby allowing integration of rigorously controlled experimental manipulations with detailed observations of the ecological contexts in which interactions among conspecifics occur.Keywords: integrative models of social behavior, behavioral neuroendocrinology, behavioral genetics, psychopathology, model systemsEdited by:Regina M. Sullivan, University of Oklahoma, USA; NYU Langone Medical Center, USA; Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, USAReviewed by:Frances A. Champagne, Columbia University, USANim Tottenham, University of California Los Angeles, USA*Correspondence:Daniel T. Blumstein, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Los Angeles, 621 Young Drive South, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1606, USA. e-mail: [email protected]; Loren D. Hayes, Department of Biology, University of Louisiana at Monroe, Monroe, LA 71209, USA. e-mail: [email protected]†Current Address: Joseph Robert Burger, Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA.Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience www.frontiersin.org June 2010 | Volume 4 | Article 34 | 2Blumstein et al. Integrating studies of social behaviorWhile not all forms of social interaction are as complex or challenging to interpret as cooperative behaviors, social behavior is a fundamental attribute of the biology of many species and has been the focus of extensive research by scientists from multiple disciplines. Despite widespread application to basic and applied science, developing a comprehensive