Social Networks analysis of Animal Behavior

This is an abstract for a book called Social network analysis of animal behaviour : a promising tool for the study of sociality written by Tina Wey, Daniel Blumstein, Weiwei Shen, and Jordan Ferenc.

Social animals live and interact together, forming complex relationships and social structure. These relationships can have important fitness consequences, but most studies do not explicitly measure those relationships. An approach that explicitly measures relationships will further our understanding of social complexity and the consequences of both direct and indirect interactions. Social network analysis is the study of social groups as networks of nodes connected by social ties. This approach examines individuals and groups in the context of relationships between group members. Application of social network analysis to animal behaviour can advance the field by identifying and quantifying specific attributes of social relationships, many of which are not captured by more common measures of sociality, such as group size. Sophisticated methods for network construction and analysis exist in other fields, but until recently, have seen relatively little application to animal systems. We present a brief history of social network analysis, a description of basic concepts and previous applications to animal behaviour. We then highlight relevance and constraints of some network measures, including results from an original study of the effect of sampling on network parameter estimates, and we end with promising directions for research. By doing so, we provide a prospective overview of social network analysis' general utility for the study of animal social behaviour.

I found it very interesting, especially when you try to think of commonalities between animal and human networks. For instance, what do you think the "degrees of separation" would be for lions in the sahara desert? There are many application of this knowledge, especially in the medical field. How fast did the flu spread for chimpanzees compared to us? Given that humanity's social networks with technology are much more vast that the animal kingdom, there is still information that can be drawn.