Mendez, J. D. | Search bioRxiv

bioRxiv2018

A multi-species repository of social networks

Social network analysis is an invaluable tool to understand the patterns, evolution, and consequences of sociality. Comparative studies over the spectrum of sociality across taxonomic groups are particularly valuable. Such studies however require quantitative information on social interactions across multiple species which is not easily available. We introduce the Animal Social Network Repository (ASNR) as the first multi-taxonomic repository that collates more than 650 social networks from 47 species, including those of mammals, reptiles, fish, birds, and insects. The repository was created by consolidating social network datasets from the literature on wild and captive animals into a consistent and easy-to-use network data format. The repository is archived at https://bansallab.github.io/asnr/. ASNR has tremendous research potential, including testing hypotheses in the fields of animal ecology, social behavior, epidemiology and evolutionary biology.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2017

Disease implications of animal social organization and network structure - a quantitative analysis

O_LIThe disease costs of sociality have largely been understood through the link between group size and transmission. However, infectious disease spread is driven primarily by the social organization of interactions in a group and not its size.\nC_LIO_LIWe used statistical models to review the social network organization of 47 species, including mammals, birds, reptiles, fish and insects by categorizing each species into one of three social systems, relatively solitary, gregarious and socially hierarchical. Additionally, using computational experiments of infection spread, we determined the disease costs of each social system.\nC_LIO_LIWe find that relatively solitary species have large variation in number of social partners, that socially hierarchical species are the least clustered in their interactions, and that social networks of gregarious species tend to be the most fragmented. However, these structural differences are primarily driven by weak connections, which suggests that different social systems have evolved unique strategies to organize weak ties.\nC_LIO_LIOur synthetic disease experiments reveal that social network organization can mitigate the disease costs of group living for socially hierarchical species when the pathogen is highly transmissible. In contrast, highly transmissible pathogens cause frequent and prolonged epidemic outbreaks in gregarious species.\nC_LIO_LIWe evaluate the implications of network organization across social systems despite methodological challenges, and our findings offer new perspective on the debate about the disease costs of group living. Additionally, our study demonstrates the potential of meta-analytic methods in social network analysis to test ecological and evolutionary hypotheses on cooperation, group living, communication, and resilience to extrinsic pressures.\nC_LI

epidemiology↗