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Social inheritance can explain the structure of animal social networks

Amiyaal Ilany, View ORCID ProfileErol Akcay
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/026120
Amiyaal Ilany
University of Pennsylvania
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Erol Akcay
University of Pennsylvania
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  • ORCID record for Erol Akcay
  • For correspondence: eakcay@sas.upenn.edu
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Abstract

The social network structure of animal populations has major implications to survival, reproductive success, sexual selection, and pathogen transmission. But as of yet, no general theory of social network structure exists that can explain the diversity of social networks observed in nature, and serve as a null model for detecting species and population-specific factors. Here we propose a simple and generally applicable model of social network structure. We consider the emergence of network structure as a result of social inheritance, in which newborns are likely to bond with maternal contacts, and via forming bonds randomly. We compare model output to data from several species, showing that it can generate networks with properties such as those observed in real social systems. Our model demonstrates that important observed properties of social networks, including heritability of network position or assortative associations, can be understood as a consequence of social inheritance.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted October 19, 2015.
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Social inheritance can explain the structure of animal social networks
Amiyaal Ilany, Erol Akcay
bioRxiv 026120; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/026120
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Social inheritance can explain the structure of animal social networks
Amiyaal Ilany, Erol Akcay
bioRxiv 026120; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/026120

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  • Animal Behavior and Cognition
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