Socioecological model

Abstract

The “socioecological model” is a conceptual approach used to explain the diversity of social organizations among primates by identifying the ecological and social determinants responsible for such diversity. Historically, ecological determinants have been focused on predation pressure and food abundance/distribution, and social determinants on male participation in grouping behavior. More recently, the trend has been toward increasingly detailed predictions of female social behavior within certain types of social organizations. This has produced largely unsatisfactory results, and some have recommended that socioecology and its conceptual models be abandoned and replaced by approaches that involve phylogenetic, or internal, constraints. A more recent socioecological model follows in the footsteps of traditional socioecological models in considering only broad levels of diversity in social organization. It differs from other models by including both ecological determinants and evolved energetic constraints, the latter likely having a phylogenetic footprint.