Social status and parasitism in male and female vertebrates: a meta-analysis.

Social status is an important predictor of parasite risk in vertebrates. To date, general frameworks to explain status-related variation in parasitism have remained elusive. In this meta-analysis, we evaluated five hypotheses proposed to explain status-related variation in parasitism in male and female vertebrates by leveraging variation in hierarchy type, mating system, parasite transmission mode, and allostatic load to test associated predictions.