Social Barriers in Ecological Landscapes: The Social Resistance Hypothesis

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2019.10.001

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

Volume 35, Issue 2, February 2020, Pages 137-148

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2019.10.001 Get rights and content

Highlights

The social environment can impose many challenges for animals as they attempt to disperse and reproduce.
The barriers arising from the social environment can generate a difference between where animals can move and where they recruit. We define social resistance as the contribution of the social environment to the difference between physical connectivity and gene flow.
We hypothesise that social resistance will be greatest when animals have to navigate through social landscapes that have high functional organisation.
Social resistance can act as a driver of life-history evolution by selecting for strategies that allow individuals to overcome social barriers.
By bridging individual social behaviour and landscape genetics, the social resistance hypothesis allows a greater understanding of the feedback between landscape-level processes and individual-level social behaviour.

Across animal societies, individuals invest time and energy in social interactions. The social landscape that emerges from these interactions can then generate barriers that limit the ability of individuals to disperse to, and reproduce in, groups or populations. Therefore, social barriers can contribute to the difference between the physical capacity for movement through the habitat and subsequent gene flow. We call this contributing effect ‘social resistance’. We propose that social resistance can act as an agent of selection on key life-history strategies and promote the evolution of social strategies that facilitate effective dispersal. By linking landscape genetics and social behaviour, the social resistance hypothesis generates predictions integrating dispersal, connectivity, and life-history evolution.

Section snippets

The Social Resistance Hypothesis

A central process in ecology and evolution is the transfer of genes from one population to the next. Gene flow (see Glossary) depends on movement, typically the dispersal of individuals from their natal environment. Physical features of the environment (e.g., mountains, deep water, or lack of suitable habitat) generate barriers that limit the ability of individuals (and their genes) to disperse [1]. However, even after overcoming physical barriers, effective dispersal is only realised if an

Social Resistance Is a Missing Link between Models of Dispersal and Gene Flow

Dispersal has been investigated by population ecologists, landscape ecologists, and behavioural ecologists, each traditionally considering different spatial and temporal scales [13]. The three stages of dispersal (emigration, transience, and immigration [4]) can be evaluated using myriad demographic and genetic approaches to estimate movement of genes or individuals across space [14] (Figure 2A,B). Genetic-based analytical tools can be used to measure effective dispersal, while tracking

How Do Social Systems Generate Social Resistance?

Much is known about how physical features of the landscape affect where individuals can disperse to and subsequently reproduce. In parallel, the study of behaviour is rich in hypotheses about how social behaviour operates within populations [21]. Less is known about how social systems can themselves shape dispersal and subsequent gene flow independently of the physical landscape. Early theoretical work considered links between social behaviour and dispersal movements [22], but focussed on

Social Resistance as an Agent of Selection on Life-History Strategies

Social resistance represents the social barriers faced by individuals as they transition from one life-history stage into another, over and above the physical barriers to movement. By altering connectivity between patches (Figure 2), social resistance can act as an agent of selection on both social and nonsocial traits that facilitate individuals navigating the social landscape [59]. Thus, social resistance is inherently linked to life-history evolution. Here, we highlight how social resistance

Concluding Remarks and Implications

Social resistance is a prevalent natural phenomenon that is largely overlooked in landscape ecology (see Outstanding Questions). The social resistance hypothesis will improve our understanding of the differences between the physical connectivity among patches and gene flow. Addressing social resistance requires integrating research that spans in scale from the landscape (i.e., how the physical environment affects the ability for individuals to move) to the patch (i.e., how social factors affect

Acknowledgements

We thank P.M. Kappeler, D. Papageorgiou, K.L. Laskowski, H.B. Brandl, M.P. Armansin, W.E. Magnusson, P. He, A.A. Maldonado-Chaparro, A. Stephens, and anonymous referees for their insightful comments. N.C.A. was supported by a Macquarie University Research Excellence Scholarship and received additional funding from MQMarine and the Department of Biological Sciences. M.C. was supported by a Conselho de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior fellowship (CAPES 88881.170254/2018-01). S.T.L.

Glossary

Breeding resistance: extent to which social factors limit the ability of an individual to breed in a patch. This could be either in the natal patch (potentially forcing dispersal) or in the destination patch (after entry).
Dispersal: process of moving between patches; does not need to imply permanent or long-term establishment or successful reproduction in a destination patch; typically involves three phases: departure (emigration), transience (movement), and settlement (immigration).
Effective

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However, the quality of tracks will degrade and become less relevant with time, meaning that there is value in synchrony and temporal proximity irrespective of how the cue is sensed. Maintaining cohesion in a social group structure will ensure that individuals have access to relevant cues when they are most valuable, and therefore create a social barrier to movement away from the aggregation [37] (and most definitely for optimal movement), and ultimately may promote colonial living [38]. For example, seabirds and marine animals likely maintain cohesion for foraging efficiency and for safety in numbers at nest sites, but the idea that colonial living may have evolved, at least in part, to facilitate movement efficiency is rarely considered.
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⁹: These authors contributed equally to this work

^@: Twitter: @NicoArmansin (N.C. Armansin), @DamienFarine (D.R. Farine)

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Trends in Ecology & Evolution

ReviewSocial Barriers in Ecological Landscapes: The Social Resistance Hypothesis

Highlights

Section snippets

The Social Resistance Hypothesis

Social Resistance Is a Missing Link between Models of Dispersal and Gene Flow

How Do Social Systems Generate Social Resistance?

Social Resistance as an Agent of Selection on Life-History Strategies

Concluding Remarks and Implications

Acknowledgements

Glossary

Anim. Behav.

Anim. Behav.

Trends Ecol. Evol.

Landscape Urban Plan

Anim. Behav.

Trends Ecol. Evol.

Anim. Behav.

Anim. Behav.

Anim. Behav.

Anim. Behav.

Trends Ecol. Evol.

Trends Ecol. Evol.

Anim. Behav.

Anim. Behav.

Trends Ecol. Evol.

Individual dispersal, landscape connectivity and ecological networks

Biol. Rev.

Isolating the roles of movement and reproduction on effective connectivity alters conservation priorities for an endangered bird

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A.

Genetic consequences of mammalian social structure

J. Mammal.

Modelling dispersal: an eco-evolutionary framework incorporating emigration, movement, settlement behaviour and the multiple costs involved

Methods Ecol. Evol.

Social complexity from within: how individuals experience the structure and organization of their groups

Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol.

A framework for studying social complexity

Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol.

Social influences on survival and reproduction: insights from a long-term study of wild baboons

J. Anim. Ecol.

Coalitions in theory and reality: a review of pertinent variables and processes

Behaviour

Socially informed dispersal in a territorial cooperative breeder

J. Anim. Ecol.

Social constraints limit dispersal and settlement decisions in a group-living bird species

Behav. Ecol.

Demographic and genetic approaches to study dispersal in wild animal populations: a methodological review

Mol. Ecol.

Estimating landscape resistance to movement: a review

Landscape Ecol.

Use of resistance surfaces for landscape genetic studies: considerations for parameterization and analysis

Mol. Ecol.

Resistance Surface Modeling in Landscape Genetics

Landscape Genetics: Concepts, Methods, Applications

Isolation by resistance

Evolution

Living in Groups

Population regulation of cyclic mammals - the Social Fence Hypothesis

Oikos

The Social Fence Hypothesis - a critique

Oikos

Living in groups: predators and prey

Southern pied babblers: the dynamics of conflict and cooperation in a group-living society

Site-specific group selection drives locally adapted group compositions

Nature

Assortment and the analysis of natural selection on social traits

Evolution

Not all sex ratios are equal: the Fisher condition, parental care and sexual selection

Philos. T. R. Soc. B

Male-biased dispersal, female philopatry, and routes to fitness in a social corvid

J. Anim. Ecol.

Inbreeding avoidance in Cunningham's skinks (Egernia cunninghami) in natural and fragmented habitat

Mol. Ecol.

Nonrandom dispersal in free-ranging vervet monkeys - social and genetic consequences

Am. Nat.

Dispersal in male ursine colobus monkeys (Colobus vellerosus): influence of age, rank and contact with other groups on dispersal decisions

Behaviour

Dispersal and philopatry in the European badger, Meles meles

J. Zool.

The process of dispersal in badgers Meles meles

Review
Social Barriers in Ecological Landscapes: The Social Resistance Hypothesis