Ilany Amiyaal, Booms Andrew S, Holekamp Kay E
Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA.
National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA.
Ecol Lett. 2015 Jul;18(7):687-95. doi: 10.1111/ele.12447. Epub 2015 May 14.
Social structure influences ecological processes such as dispersal and invasion, and affects survival and reproductive success. Recent studies have used static snapshots of social networks, thus neglecting their temporal dynamics, and focused primarily on a limited number of variables that might be affecting social structure. Here, instead we modelled effects of multiple predictors of social network dynamics in the spotted hyena, using observational data collected during 20 years of continuous field research in Kenya. We tested the hypothesis that the current state of the social network affects its long-term dynamics. We employed stochastic agent-based models that allowed us to estimate the contribution of multiple factors to network changes. After controlling for environmental and individual effects, we found that network density and individual centrality affected network dynamics, but that social bond transitivity consistently had the strongest effects. Our results emphasise the significance of structural properties of networks in shaping social dynamics.
社会结构影响着诸如扩散和入侵等生态过程，并影响生存和繁殖成功率。近期研究使用了社会网络的静态快照，从而忽略了它们的时间动态，并且主要关注可能影响社会结构的有限数量的变量。在此，我们使用在肯尼亚持续20年的野外研究中收集的观测数据，建立了斑点鬣狗社会网络动态的多个预测因子的模型。我们检验了社会网络的当前状态会影响其长期动态的假设。我们采用了基于随机代理的模型，使我们能够估计多个因素对网络变化的贡献。在控制了环境和个体效应后，我们发现网络密度和个体中心性影响网络动态，但社会纽带传递性始终具有最强的影响。我们的结果强调了网络结构属性在塑造社会动态中的重要性。
