Behavioural and physiological plasticity in social hierarchies
Open accessAbstract
Individuals occupying dominant and subordinate positions in social hierarchies exhibit divergent behaviours, physiology and neural functioning. Dominant animals express higher levels of dominance behaviours such as aggression, territorial defence and mate-guarding. Dominants also signal their status via auditory, visual or chemical cues. Moreover, dominant animals typically increase reproductive behaviours and show enhanced spatial and social cognition as well as elevated arousal. These biobehavioural changes increase energetic demands that are met via shifting both energy intake and metabolism and are supported by coordinated changes in physiological systems including the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal and hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axes as well as altered gene expression and sensitivity of neural circuits that regulate these behaviours. Conversely, subordinate animals inhibit dominance and often reproductive behaviours and exhibit physiological changes adapted to socially stressful contexts. Phenotypic changes in both dominant and subordinate individuals may be beneficial in the short-term but lead to long-term challenges to health. Further, rapid changes in social ranks occur as dominant animals socially ascend or descend and are associated with dynamic modulations in the brain and periphery. In this paper, we provide a broad overview of how behavioural and phenotypic changes associated with social dominance and subordination are expressed in neural and physiological p…
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Transitions in social rank are associated with significant modifications to individual behavior and physiology.
“Such transitions in social rank are associated with significant modifications to individual behavior and physiology [4–8].”
Plasma glucocorticoid levels across vertebrates are higher in dominant animals during periods of particularly intense competitive interactions between dominant animals such as during high reproductive competition or food shortage.
“studies that have demonstrated that plasma glucocorticoid levels across vertebrates are higher in dominant animals during periods of particularly intense competitive interactions between dominant animals such as during high reproductive competition or food shortage [7,38–43].”
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Urban Animal Density: Red Foxes and Emergent Sociality in the City
Fry, T. (2026) · Transactions (Institute of British Geographers) · doi:10.1111/tran.70090
Seese, S., Milewski, T., Fusillo, M., & Curley, J. P. (2026) · bioRxiv · doi:10.64898/2026.08.26.747333
“Subordinates also exhibit dynamic behavioral and physiological responses to their social position (Milewski et al., 2022).”
Self-citationAcute Sleep Deprivation Rank-Dependently Enhances Offensive Aggression via the PVN in Male Mice.
Lu, Y., Li, Y.-L., Chen, S., Li, Y., Yu, T., Yin, X.-Y., Yan, S., Liu, Y.-Z., Liu, Y.-R., Yang, R., et al. (2026) · Behavioural Brain Research · doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2026.116410
Inbreeding tolerance predicts mechanisms of socially induced infertility in vertebrates.
Hart, D. W., & Bennett, N. C. (2026) · Trends in Ecology & Evolution · doi:10.1016/j.tree.2026.07.007
Shen, F.-Y., Fang, G., Xu, H., Ren, Y.-H., Li, S.-Q., Li, L., & Lin, T.-T. (2026) · Applied Animal Behaviour Science · doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2026.107151
Möhlmann, A. M., Penninga, M. S., Petersen, S. D., & Shuert, C. (2026) · Frontiers in Ethology · doi:10.3389/fetho.2026.1867861
“Changes in personality could also in fl uence the group ’ s hierarchy, as for example, agreeableness is directly related to social behavior (Quintavalle Pastorino et al., 2017; Milewski et al., 2022).”
The Painted Wolf Decision Optimizer
Zakeri, S., Konstantas, D., & Chatterjee, P. (2026) · De Computis · doi:10.3390/computers15070452
“In African wild dogs, decision-making is instinctive and shaped by survival-driven behavior, whereas in human MCDM contexts, criteria are defined systematically using experience, expertise, preferences, and contextual interpretation [111].”
Roy, D. R., Tomčala, A., Pötzsch, S., Keiler, A., Elayaraja, S., Thi, T. C. N., Stejskal, V., & Pfennig, F. (2026) · Aquaculture Reports · doi:10.1016/j.aqrep.2026.103675
Díaz-Nido, J., & Ávila, J. (2026) · Brain Science · doi:10.3390/brainsci16070709
“Interestingly, behavioral and physiological changes associated with rising or falling within a hierarchy can occur over short periods, suggesting that these social states are remarkably plastic [90].”
Plasticity associated with adoption of social roles in clown anemonefish
Vizer, L. F., Alvarado, D., Bove, C. B., Herrera, M., Hughes, A. M., Thompson, K., Bogdanowicz, S. M., Laudet, V., Davies, S. W., & Buston, P. (2026) · bioRxiv · doi:10.7554/elife.109871
“Dominance hierarchies are determined by and subsequently determine interactions among group members (Milewski et al., 2022).”
Bán, K. A., Lőrincz, Á., Frei, K., Cseh, F., Pécsy, F., & Maák, I. (2026) · Ecology and Evolution · doi:10.1002/ece3.73382
“Although we were unable to incorporate dominance directly into our experimental design, social rank and dominance within and between sexes are highly relevant factors in cognitive research (Milewski et al. 2022).”
Fan, Y.-Z., Ge, S., Lu, L.-D., Niu, W., Wang, Z., Jiao, X.-G., & Fang, G.-Z. (2026) · PLoS Biology · doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3003687
Ukichi, R., Takahashi, Y., Ibukuro, M., Sugimura, Y., Matoba, K., Nishimura, R., & Kato, F. (2026) · Journal of Physiological Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.jphyss.2026.100058
“These observations are reminiscent of reports in primates and humans [53 – 55] showing that individual differences in glucose regulation may be linked to the social subordination of each individual.”
Radford, A. F., Whitten, C. J., Wells, A. N., Hooker, M. K., & Cooper, M. A. (2026) · Physiology and Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2026.115246
Social hierarchy modulates drug reinforcement and protein phosphorylation in the nucleus accumbens
Xu, L., Zhou, R.-Y., Zhong, J.-F., Huang, Y.-N., Zhu, Y.-J., & Xu, W. (2025) · Frontiers in Pharmacology · doi:10.3389/fphar.2025.1537131
“Among these, social hierarchy — a ubiquitous phenomenon in both humans and animals that in fl uences physiology and health (Sapolsky, 2005) and governs access to critical resources such as food and mates — has garnered signi fi cant attention (Milewski et al., 2022).”
Physical enrichment and aggression in captive animals: A multi-level perspective on welfare outcomes
Dijkstra, P., Oldfield, R. G., & Kelty, J. D. (2026) · Animal Welfare · doi:10.1017/awf.2026.10121
- Authors
- Milewski, T. M., Lee, W., Champagne, F. A., & Curley, J. P.
- Affiliations
- The University of Texas at Austin (US)
- Corresponding author
- Curley, J. P.
- Venue
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Published
- 2022-01-10
- Volume
- 377
- Issue
- 1845
- Pages
- 20200443-20200443
- ISSN
- 0962-8436 (ISSN-L)
- 1471-2970
- PMC
- PMC8743892
- OpenAlex
- W4206229874
- Cited by
- 105
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 31 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 15
- FWCI
- 17.47
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Licence
- Locations
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
- Keywords
- social dominance, social hierarchy, dominance behavior, subordination, behavioral plasticity, physiological plasticity, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, social stress, aggression, reproductive behavior, social cognition, energy metabolism, gene expression
- MeSH terms
- Aggression, Animals, Hierarchy, Social, Reproduction, Social Dominance, Territoriality
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