Abstract
AbstractMany animals live in societies where individuals frequently interact socially with each other. The social structures of these systems can be studied in depth by means of network analysis. A large number of studies on animal social networks in many species have in recent years been carried out in the biological research field of animal behaviour and have provided new insights into behaviour, ecology and social evolution. This line of research is currently not so well connected to the field of complex systems as could be expected. The purpose of this article is to provide an introduction to animal social networks for complex systems scientists and highlight areas of synergy. We believe that an increased integration of animal social networks with the interdisciplinary field of complex systems, and networks would be beneficial for various reasons. Increased collaboration between researchers in this field and biologists studying animal social systems could be valuable in solving challenges that are of importance to animal social network research. Furthermore, animal social networks provide the opportunity to investigate hypotheses about complex systems across a range of natural real-world social systems. In this article, we describe what animal social networks are and main research themes where they are studied; we give an overview of the methods commonly used to study animal social networks; we highlight challenges in the study of animal social networks where complex systems expertise may be particularly valuable; and we consider aspects of animal social networks that may be of particular interest to complex systems researchers. We hope that this will help to facilitate further interdisciplinary collaborations involving animal social networks and further integration of these networks into the field of complex systems.
Highlights
Animals of many species live in groups where individuals spend time in close proximity to each other and frequently interact [1]
We describe some challenges for animal social network studies where input from scientists with expertise in other types of empirical networks or in theoretical aspects of complex systems may be valuable for finding good solutions
Animal social systems of different species and populations are shaped by different selection pressures and ecological circumstances and characterized by strikingly different social dynamics and resulting network structures [2, 9, 10], ranging from structures based on family groups that are stable over multiple generations, to those based on groups that split and merge on a sub-minute time scale (e.g. Trinidadian guppies, Fig. 1)
Summary
Animals of many species live in groups where individuals spend time in close proximity to each other and frequently interact [1]. Our hope is that this can facilitate further integration of this area of research into the interdisciplinary field of complex systems and networks, and strengthen the connection between biologists studying animal social networks and researchers with expertise in complex systems. Animal social network research is facing specific challenges where input from computational and theoretical scientists with knowledge about complex systems can be highly relevant for finding good solutions. Overcoming these challenges is a relevant scientific endeavour because animal social networks constitute a class of networks that play a central role in evolutionary and ecological processes [2, 9, 10], and they are important to study in their own right. We finish with a note on the availability of animal social network data (Section 7) and a brief conclusion (Section 8)
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