Reviews in the Evolutionary Ecology of Social Behavior 2026

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution welcomes contributions to Reviews in the Evolutionary Ecology of Social Behavior 2026, a focused review collection examining how ecological pressures shape the origin, maintenance, and diversification of social behavior across the animal kingdom.Sociality has evolved repeatedly and in strikingly different forms - from cooperative breeding and eusocial colonies to fission-fusion societies, alloparental care, and complex social networks. Synthesizing what we know about the ecological and evolutionary forces behind these systems - resource distribution, predation risk, kinship structure, life history, and environmental change - is essential for advancing the field and guiding future inquiry.We invite review articles that synthesize recent advances in areas including, but not limited to:• Ecological drivers of group living and cooperation• Communication, social learning, and play as windows into cognitive and social evolution• Social network analysis and other quantitative approaches to animal societies• Kin selection, altruism, and conflict within social groups• Life history evolution and its links to social organization• Behavioral responses to habitat change and resource variability• Anthropogenic pressures (climate change, habitat loss, pollution) reshaping social behavior and population dynamics• Cross-taxonomic comparisons that draw out general principles of social evolutionThe collection particularly values contributions that identify emerging theoretical frameworks, evaluate new methodologies, and articulate forward-looking research directions that can shape the next decade of work in evolutionary behavioral ecology.To accommodate varying scopes, we welcome full-length reviews (comprehensive syntheses), mini reviews (focused discussions of recent breakthroughs), and systematic reviews (rigorous evidence synthesis). New articles will be added as they are published. Topic editors: Ilaria Negri, Anita Stone Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/79272/reviews-in-the-evolutionary-ecology-of-social-behavior-2026