Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Social fluidity mobilizes contagion in human and animal populations

Ewan Colman, Vittoria Colizza, Ephraim M. Hanks, David P. Hughes, Shweta Bansal
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/170266
Ewan Colman
1Department of Biology, Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States
2Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh, Easter Bush, Midlothian, United Kingdom
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: ec975@georgetown.edu
Vittoria Colizza
3INSERM, Sorbonne Université, Institut Pierre Louis d’Épidémiologie et de Santé Publique (IPLESP UMRS 1136), F75012, Paris, France
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Ephraim M. Hanks
4Department of Statistics, Eberly College of Science, Penn State University, State College, United States
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
David P. Hughes
5Department of Entomology, College of Agricultural Sciences, Penn State University, State College, United States
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Shweta Bansal
1Department of Biology, Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Supplementary material
  • Data/Code
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

Humans and other group-living animals tend to distribute their social effort disproportionately. Individuals predominantly interact with a small number of close companions while maintaining weaker social bonds with less familiar group members. By incorporating this behaviour into a mathematical model we find that a single parameter, which we refer to as social fluidity, controls the rate of social mixing within the group. We compare the social fluidity of 13 species by applying the model to empirical human and animal social interaction data. To investigate how social behavior influences the likelihood of an epidemic outbreak we derive an analytical expression of the relationship between social fluidity and the basic reproductive number of an infectious disease. For highly fluid social behaviour disease transmission is revealed to be density-dependent. For species that form more stable social bonds, the model describes frequency-dependent transmission that is sensitive to changes in social fluidity.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Footnotes

  • Minor changes to text in response to reviewer feedback

  • https://github.com/EwanColman/Social-Fluidity

Copyright 
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.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted August 12, 2020.
Download PDF

Supplementary Material

Data/Code
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Social fluidity mobilizes contagion in human and animal populations
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Social fluidity mobilizes contagion in human and animal populations
Ewan Colman, Vittoria Colizza, Ephraim M. Hanks, David P. Hughes, Shweta Bansal
bioRxiv 170266; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/170266
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Social fluidity mobilizes contagion in human and animal populations
Ewan Colman, Vittoria Colizza, Ephraim M. Hanks, David P. Hughes, Shweta Bansal
bioRxiv 170266; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/170266

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Epidemiology
  • Ecology
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (3686)
  • Biochemistry (7766)
  • Bioengineering (5666)
  • Bioinformatics (21234)
  • Biophysics (10552)
  • Cancer Biology (8157)
  • Cell Biology (11902)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (6736)
  • Ecology (10387)
  • Epidemiology (2065)
  • Evolutionary Biology (13838)
  • Genetics (9693)
  • Genomics (13054)
  • Immunology (8120)
  • Microbiology (19932)
  • Molecular Biology (7824)
  • Neuroscience (42955)
  • Paleontology (318)
  • Pathology (1276)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2256)
  • Physiology (3350)
  • Plant Biology (7207)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1309)
  • Synthetic Biology (1998)
  • Systems Biology (5528)
  • Zoology (1126)