Department of Integrative Biology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078, USA.
Department of Biology, University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth, MN 55812, USA.
Integr Comp Biol. 2021 Oct 4;61(3):814-824. doi: 10.1093/icb/icab013.
Communication is a social process and usually occurs in a network of signalers and receivers. While social network analysis has received enormous recent attention from animal behaviorists, there have been relatively few attempts to apply these techniques to communication networks. Communication networks have the potential to offer novel insights into social network studies, and yet are especially challenging subjects, largely because of their unique spatiotemporal characteristics. Namely, signals propagate through the environment, often dissociating from the body of the signaler, to influence receiver behavior. The speed of signal propagation and the signal's active space will affect the congruence of communication networks and other types of social network; in extreme cases, the signal may persist and only first be detected long after the signaler has left the area. Other signals move more rapidly and over greater distances than the signaler could possibly move to reach receivers. We discuss the spatial and temporal consequences of signaling in networks and highlight the distinction between the physical location of the signaler and the spread of influence of its signals, the effects of signal modality and receiver sensitivity on communication network properties, the potential for feedbacks between network layers, and approaches to analyzing spatial and temporal change in communication networks in conjunction with other network layers.
通信是一个社会过程，通常发生在信号发送者和接收者的网络中。虽然社会网络分析最近受到动物行为学家的极大关注，但很少有人试图将这些技术应用于通信网络。通信网络有可能为社会网络研究提供新的见解，但它们是特别具有挑战性的课题，主要是因为它们具有独特的时空特征。也就是说，信号通过环境传播，通常与信号发送者的身体分离，从而影响接收者的行为。信号传播的速度和信号的活动空间将影响通信网络和其他类型的社会网络的一致性；在极端情况下，信号可能会持续存在，并且只有在信号发送者离开该区域很久之后才会被首次检测到。其他信号比信号发送者能够移动到接收者的速度更快，距离更远。我们讨论了网络中信号传递的空间和时间后果，并强调了信号发送者的物理位置与其信号影响的传播之间的区别、信号模态和接收者灵敏度对通信网络特性的影响、网络层之间反馈的可能性，以及结合其他网络层分析通信网络空间和时间变化的方法。
