Department of Biology and Mountain Lake Biological Station, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA.
Department of Biology, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA 19081, USA.
Biol Lett. 2022 Mar;18(3):20210509. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2021.0509. Epub 2022 Mar 16.
Social network structure is a critical group character that mediates the flow of information, pathogens and resources among individuals in a population, yet little is known about what shapes social structures. In this study, we experimentally tested whether social network structure depends on the personalities of individual group members. Replicate groups of forked fungus beetles () were engineered to include only members previously assessed as either more social or less social. We found that individuals expressed consistent personalities across social contexts, exhibiting repeatable numbers of interactions and numbers of partners. Groups composed of more social individuals formed networks with higher interaction rates, higher tie density, higher global clustering and shorter average shortest paths than those composed of less social individuals. We highlight group composition of personalities as a source of variance in group traits and a potential mechanism by which networks could evolve.
社会网络结构是一个关键的群体特征，它在群体中的个体之间传递信息、病原体和资源，但人们对塑造社会结构的因素知之甚少。在这项研究中，我们通过实验测试了社会网络结构是否取决于个体成员的个性。我们设计了重复的叉突菌象鼻虫群体，其中只包括之前被评估为更具社交性或不那么社交性的成员。我们发现，个体在社交环境中表现出一致的个性，表现出可重复的互动次数和伙伴数量。由更具社交性的个体组成的群体比由不那么社交性的个体组成的群体具有更高的互动率、更高的连接密度、更高的全局聚类和更短的平均最短路径。我们强调了群体成员个性的组成是群体特征变化的一个来源，也是网络可能进化的一个潜在机制。
