TY - JOUR
T1 - Similar but different
T2 - Dynamic social network analysis highlights fundamental differences between the fission-fusion societies of two equid species, the onager and Grevy's zebra
AU - Rubenstein, Daniel Ian
AU - Sundaresan, Siva R.
AU - Fischhoff, Ilya R.
AU - Tantipathananandh, Chayant
AU - Berger-Wolf, Tanya Y.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors have the following interests: This study was partly funded by Microsoft Research. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in the guide for authors.
Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Mark Newman for a lecture that motivated this research, Mosheh Wolf for introducing some of the authors, and the anonymous reviewers for the constructive comments that helped to improve the paper substantially. This work was in part supported by Princeton University (IRF, SRS), McMaster (IRF), Smithsonian Institution (IRF), Denver Zoological Foundation (SRS), Wildlife Conservation Society (SRS), University of Illinois at Chicago (CT), Microsoft award 14936 (TYB), and the following NSF grants: IBN-0309233 (DIR, SRS), CNS-025214 (DIR), IOB-9874523 (DIR), IIS-0705822 (TYB, DIR), IIS-0747369 (TYB), OCI-1152895 (TYB, DIR, CT), CNS-1248080 (TYB, DIR).
PY - 2015/10/21
Y1 - 2015/10/21
N2 - Understanding why animal societies take on the form that they do has benefited from insights gained by applying social network analysis to patterns of individual associations. Such analyses typically aggregate data over long time periods even though most selective forces that shape sociality have strong temporal elements. By explicitly incorporating the temporal signal in social interaction data we re-examine the network dynamics of the social systems of the evolutionarily closely-related Grevy's zebras and wild asses that show broadly similar social organizations. By identifying dynamic communities, previously hidden differences emerge: Grevy's zebras show more modularity than wild asses and in wild asses most communities consist of solitary individuals; and in Grevy's zebras, lactating females show a greater propensity to switch communities than non-lactating females and males. Both patterns were missed by static network analyses and in general, adding a temporal dimension provides insights into differences associated with the size and persistence of communities as well as the frequency and synchrony of their formation. Dynamic network analysis provides insights into the functional significance of these social differences and highlights the way dynamic community analysis can be applied to other species.
AB - Understanding why animal societies take on the form that they do has benefited from insights gained by applying social network analysis to patterns of individual associations. Such analyses typically aggregate data over long time periods even though most selective forces that shape sociality have strong temporal elements. By explicitly incorporating the temporal signal in social interaction data we re-examine the network dynamics of the social systems of the evolutionarily closely-related Grevy's zebras and wild asses that show broadly similar social organizations. By identifying dynamic communities, previously hidden differences emerge: Grevy's zebras show more modularity than wild asses and in wild asses most communities consist of solitary individuals; and in Grevy's zebras, lactating females show a greater propensity to switch communities than non-lactating females and males. Both patterns were missed by static network analyses and in general, adding a temporal dimension provides insights into differences associated with the size and persistence of communities as well as the frequency and synchrony of their formation. Dynamic network analysis provides insights into the functional significance of these social differences and highlights the way dynamic community analysis can be applied to other species.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0138645
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0138645
M3 - Article
C2 - 26488598
AN - SCOPUS:84950112335
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 10
JO - PloS one
JF - PloS one
IS - 10
M1 - e0138645
ER -