Université de Strasbourg, IPHC, Strasbourg, France, CNRS, Strasbourg, France.
Am J Primatol. 2011 Aug;73(8):741-7. doi: 10.1002/ajp.20932. Epub 2011 Feb 23.
Social Network Analysis is now a valuable tool to study social complexity in many animal species, including primates. However, this framework has rarely been used to implement quantitative data on the social structure of a group within computer models. Such approaches allow the investigation of how social organization constrains other traits and also how these traits can impact the social organization in return. In this commentary, we discuss the powerful potential of social network modeling as a way to study group scale phenomena in primates. We describe the advantages of using such a method and we focus on the specificity of this approach in primates, given the particularities of their social networks compared with those of other taxa. We also give practical considerations and a list of examples as for the choice of parameters that can be used to implement the social layer within the models.
社会网络分析现在是研究包括灵长类动物在内的许多动物物种社会复杂性的一种有价值的工具。然而，这个框架很少被用于在计算机模型中实现有关群体社会结构的定量数据。这种方法可以研究社会组织如何约束其他特征，以及这些特征如何反过来影响社会组织。在这篇评论中，我们讨论了社会网络建模作为一种研究灵长类动物群体规模现象的方法的强大潜力。我们描述了使用这种方法的优势，并特别关注该方法在灵长类动物中的特殊性，因为与其他分类群相比，灵长类动物的社会网络具有特殊性。我们还提供了一些实际考虑因素和示例，说明了可用于在模型中实现社会层的参数选择。
