Social network theory: new insights and issues for behavioral ecologists

By Andrew Sih, Sean F. Hanser, K. McHugh. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 2009

395 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Until recently, few studies have used social network theory (SNT) and metrics to examine how social network structure (SNS) might influence social behavior and social dynamics in non-human animals. Here, we present an overview of why and how the social network approach might be useful for behavioral ecology. We first note four important aspects of SNS that are commonly observed, but relatively rarely quantified: (1) that within a social group, differences among individuals in their social experiences and connections affect individual and group outcomes; (2) that indirect connections can be important (e.g., partners of your partners matter); (3) that individuals differ in their importance in the social network (some can be considered keystone individuals); and (4) that social network traits often carry over across contexts (e.g., SN position in male–male competition can influence later male mating success). We then discuss how these four points, and the social network approach in general, can yield new insights and questions for a broad range of issues in behavioral ecology including: mate choice, alternative mating tactics, male–male competition, cooperation, reciprocal altruism, eavesdropping, kin selection, dominance hierarchies, social learning, information flow, social foraging, and cooperative antipredator behavior. Finally, we suggest future directions including: (1) integrating behavioral syndromes and SNT; (2) comparing space use and SNS; (3) adaptive partner choice and SNS; (4) the dynamics and stability (or instability) of social networks, and (5) group selection shaping SNS.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c73187f5dcd4c3c92573e4593a0bb65d689f2f58

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Citations in the corpus

A social network perspective on measurements of dominance hierarchies (2012, background): “Network analyses play an important and increasing role in exploring the structure of animal societies (Krause et al., 2007; Wey et al., 2007; Sih et al., 2009).”
Animal social networks: an introduction (2009, background): “This volume includes a view of the future possible uses of network theory for behavioural ecologists (Sih et al. 2009) which, we hope, will whet the appetite of any readers wondering whether network analysis might be of use to them.”
Understanding variation in behavioural responses to human-induced rapid environmental change: a conceptual overview (2013, background): “Social network theory can be useful for quantifying the group’s social structure (Wey et al. 2008; Sih et al. 2009) and how that might influence individual responses to HIREC.”
The keystone individual concept: an ecological and evolutionary overview (2014, background): “Social network theory provides another set of tools to identify and analyse keystone individuals and their impacts on group dynamics (Sih et al., 2009; Wey, Blumstein, Shen, & Jordan, 2008).”
Linking levels of personality: personalities of the ‘average’ and ‘most extreme’ group members predict colony-level personality (2013, background): “Nested within H2 is the hypothesis that behavioural tendencies of the most extreme colonymembers could determine a colony’s phenotype, because the most extreme individuals could be the ones performing the task or act as ‘keystone individuals’ (Flack et al. 2006; Sih et al. 2009; Jandt et al. 2013).”
The dynamics of animal social networks: analytical, conceptual, and theoretical advances (2014, positive): “We add to previous reviews of the topic (Krause et al. 2007; Sih et al. 2009) by suggesting new approaches and statistical tools that will address the biological questions social network theory can elucidate.”
Network position: a key component in the characterization of social personality types (2012, background): “Animal personality and social network analysis have been the subject of significant research interest in recent years, and their potential ecological and evolutionary importance has been suggested by numerous empirical and conceptual studies in both fields of research (Réale et al. 2007; Sih et al. ”
Shark personalities? Repeatability of social network traits in a widely distributed predatory fish (2014, background): “Previous research clearly demonstrates that differences in an individual’s social 80 experience and connectivity not only influences group outcomes but might also carry over 81 into different future ecological contexts (Krause et al. 2009; Sih et al. 2009).”
Potential banana skins in animal social network analysis (2009, methodology): “Social network theory is a statistical analysis technique that has gained enormously in popularity over the last 10 years (Scott 2000; Newman 2003a; Croft et al. 2008, Krause et al. 2009a; Franks et al. 2009; Sih et al. 2009; Krause et al. 2007).”
Network structure is related to social conflict in a cooperatively breeding fish (2013, methodology): “While social network analysis has been increasingly employed in behavioural biology (reviewed in: Krause et al. 2007; Wey et al. 2008; Sih et al. 2009), few studies have analysed the network structure of multiple independent social groups of a given species.”