title: Social organization in Eulipotyphla: evidence for a social shrew.
abstract: Shrews and their close relatives (order Eulipotyphla) are typically considered to be solitary. This impacts our understanding of mammalian social evolution: (i) the ancestor of mammals is believed to have been shrew-like, and even though Eulipotyphla are not more basal than other mammalian orders, this might have been one reason why the first mammals have been assumed to be solitary-living; (ii) Eulipotyphla are the third largest mammalian order, with hundreds of species entering comparative analyses. We review primary field studies reporting the social organization of Eulipotyphla, doing a literature research on 445 species. Primary literature was only available for 16 of the 445 species. We found 56% of the studied species to be social (38% were living in pairs), which is in sharp contrast to the 0.5 and 8% reported in other databases. We conclude that the available information indicates that shrews are more sociable than generally believed. An interesting alternative hypothesis is that the mammalian ancestor might have been pair-living. To understand the social evolution of mammals, comparative studies must be based on reliable and specific information, and more species of all orders must be studied in the field.
authors.affiliation: Département de Licence Sciences de la Vie, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, UPMC, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France IPHC-DEPE, Université de Strasbourg, 67087 Strasbourg, France CNRS, UMR7178, 67087 Strasbourg, France.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Valomy
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Geology and Environmental Sciences, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Chattanooga, TN, USA.
authors.forename: L D
authors.initials: LD
authors.lastname: Hayes
authors.affiliation: IPHC-DEPE, Université de Strasbourg, 67087 Strasbourg, France CNRS, UMR7178, 67087 Strasbourg, France School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Wits 2050, South Africa carsten.schradin@iphc.cnrs.fr.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schradin
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D007312:Eulipotyphla / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D012919:Social Behavior
keywords: insectivore; intraspecific variation; monogamy; shrew; social flexibility; social system