Croft / James / Krause Exploring Animal Social Networks

Course Book
ISBN: 978-1-4008-3776-2
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 208 Seiten

Social network analysis is used widely in the social sciences to study interactions among people, groups, and organizations, yet until now there has been no book that shows behavioral biologists how to apply it to their work on animal populations. Exploring Animal Social Networks provides a practical guide for researchers, undergraduates, and graduate students in ecology, evolutionary biology, animal behavior, and zoology.

Existing methods for studying animal social structure focus either on one animal and its interactions or on the average properties of a whole population. This book enables researchers to probe animal social structure at all levels, from the individual to the population. No prior knowledge of network theory is assumed. The authors give a step-by-step introduction to the different procedures and offer ideas for designing studies, collecting data, and interpreting results. They examine some of today's most sophisticated statistical tools for social network analysis and show how they can be used to study social interactions in animals, including cetaceans, ungulates, primates, insects, and fish. Drawing from an array of techniques, the authors explore how network structures influence individual behavior and how this in turn influences, and is influenced by, behavior at the population level. Throughout, the authors use two software packages--UCINET and NETDRAW--to illustrate how these powerful analytical tools can be applied to different animal social organizations.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Croft, Darren P.

James, Richard

Krause, Jens

Fachgebiete

• Geowissenschaften Geographie | Raumplanung Geographie: Sachbuch, Reise
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Tierkunde / Zoologie
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften Ökologie
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften, Biologie: Sachbuch, Naturführer

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface vii

Chapter 1: Introduction to Social Networks 1

Chapter 2: Data Collection 19

Chapter 3: Visual Exploration 42

Chapter 4: Node-Based Measures 64

Chapter 5: Statistical Tests of Node-Based Measures 88

Chapter 6: Searching for Substructures 117

Chapter 7: Comparing Networks 141

Chapter 8: Conclusions 163

Glossary of Frequently Used Terms 173

References 175

Index 187

Über Autor(innen)

Darren P. Croft is lecturer in animal behavior at the University of Wales, Bangor. Richard James is senior lecturer in physics at the University of Bath. Jens Krause is professor of behavioral ecology at the University of Leeds.