Highlights•Aggression in adults is shaped by early life experiences and other
factors.•Dominance hierarchies limit conflict escalation and maintain social stability.• …

Dominance hierarchy profoundly impacts social animals' survival, physical and mental
health and reproductive success. As the measurements of dominance hierarchy in rodents …

Behavioural individuality is thought to be caused by differences in genes and/or
environmental conditions. Therefore, if these sources of variation are removed, individuals …

In many animal societies, individuals differ consistently in their ability to win agonistic
interactions, resulting in dominance hierarchies. These differences arise due to a range of …

Highlights•Considering social information is key to understanding how animals make
aggression decisions.•Hierarchies vary in the extent of information present, from low to high …

Thorlief Schjelderup-Ebbe's seminal paper on the 'pecking'order of chickens inspired
numerous ethologists to research and debate the phenomenon of dominance. The …

In this paper I develop a concept of behavioural ecological individuality. Using findings from
a case study which employed qualitative methods, I argue that individuality in behavioural …

Accelerating climate change is eroding the functioning and stability of ecosystems by
weakening the interactions among species that stabilize biological communities against …

Individual differences in aggressiveness, if consistent across time and contexts, may
contribute to the long-term maintenance of social hierarchies in complex animal societies …

Contest behaviour, and in particular the propensity to attack an unfamiliar conspecific, is
influenced by an individual's aggressiveness, as well as by experience of winning and …