The ecology of wealth inequality in animal societies.

ABSTRACT: Individuals vary in their access to resources, social connections and phenotypic traits, and a central goal of evolutionary biology is to understand how this variation arises and influences fitness. Parallel research on humans has focused on the causes and consequences of variation in material possessions, opportunity and health. Central to both fields of study is that unequal distribution of wealth is an important component of social structure that drives variation in relevant outcomes. Here, we advance a research framework and agenda for studying wealth inequality within an ecological and evolutionary context. This ecology of inequality approach presents the opportunity to reintegrate key evolutionary concepts as different dimensions of the link between wealth and fitness by (i) developi

SUBMITTER: Strauss ED 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9065979 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature