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Spatial utilization predicts animal social contact networks are not scale-free
While heterogeneity in social behaviour has been described in many human contexts it is often assumed to be less common in the animal kingdom even though scale-free networks are observed. This homogeneity raises the question of whether the patterns of behaviour necessary to account for scale-free so...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Royal Society Publishing
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5750019/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29308252 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171209 |
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author | James, Alex McLeod, Jeanette C. Rouco, Carlos Richardson, Kyle S. Tompkins, Daniel M. |
author_facet | James, Alex McLeod, Jeanette C. Rouco, Carlos Richardson, Kyle S. Tompkins, Daniel M. |
author_sort | James, Alex |
collection | PubMed |
description | While heterogeneity in social behaviour has been described in many human contexts it is often assumed to be less common in the animal kingdom even though scale-free networks are observed. This homogeneity raises the question of whether the patterns of behaviour necessary to account for scale-free social contact networks, where the degree distribution follows a power law, i.e. a few individuals are very highly connected but most have only a few connections, occur in animals, or whether other mechanisms are needed to produce realistic contact network architectures. We develop a space-utilization model for individual animal behaviour to predict the individuals' social contact network. Using basic properties of the χ(2) distribution we present a simple analytical result that allows the model to give a range of predictions with minimal computational effort. The model results are tested on data collected in New Zealand for the social contact networks of the wild brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula). Our model provides a better prediction of network architecture than other simple models, including a scale-free model. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5750019 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | The Royal Society Publishing |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-57500192018-01-07 Spatial utilization predicts animal social contact networks are not scale-free James, Alex McLeod, Jeanette C. Rouco, Carlos Richardson, Kyle S. Tompkins, Daniel M. R Soc Open Sci Mathematics While heterogeneity in social behaviour has been described in many human contexts it is often assumed to be less common in the animal kingdom even though scale-free networks are observed. This homogeneity raises the question of whether the patterns of behaviour necessary to account for scale-free social contact networks, where the degree distribution follows a power law, i.e. a few individuals are very highly connected but most have only a few connections, occur in animals, or whether other mechanisms are needed to produce realistic contact network architectures. We develop a space-utilization model for individual animal behaviour to predict the individuals' social contact network. Using basic properties of the χ(2) distribution we present a simple analytical result that allows the model to give a range of predictions with minimal computational effort. The model results are tested on data collected in New Zealand for the social contact networks of the wild brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula). Our model provides a better prediction of network architecture than other simple models, including a scale-free model. The Royal Society Publishing 2017-12-13 /pmc/articles/PMC5750019/ /pubmed/29308252 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171209 Text en © 2017 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Mathematics James, Alex McLeod, Jeanette C. Rouco, Carlos Richardson, Kyle S. Tompkins, Daniel M. Spatial utilization predicts animal social contact networks are not scale-free |
title | Spatial utilization predicts animal social contact networks are not scale-free |
title_full | Spatial utilization predicts animal social contact networks are not scale-free |
title_fullStr | Spatial utilization predicts animal social contact networks are not scale-free |
title_full_unstemmed | Spatial utilization predicts animal social contact networks are not scale-free |
title_short | Spatial utilization predicts animal social contact networks are not scale-free |
title_sort | spatial utilization predicts animal social contact networks are not scale-free |
topic | Mathematics |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5750019/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29308252 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171209 |
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