title: Social Network Analysis and Nutritional Behavior: An Integrated Modeling Approach.
abstract: Animals have evolved complex foraging strategies to obtain a nutritionally balanced diet and associated fitness benefits. Recent research combining state-space models of nutritional geometry with agent-based models (ABMs), show how nutrient targeted foraging behavior can also influence animal social interactions, ultimately affecting collective dynamics and group structures. Here we demonstrate how social network analyses can be integrated into such a modeling framework and provide a practical analytical tool to compare experimental results with theory. We illustrate our approach by examining the case of nutritionally mediated dominance hierarchies. First we show how nutritionally explicit ABMs that simulate the emergence of dominance hierarchies can be used to generate social networks. Importantly the structural properties of our simulated networks bear similarities to dominance networks of real animals (where conflicts are not always directly related to nutrition). Finally, we demonstrate how metrics from social network analyses can be used to predict the fitness of agents in these simulated competitive environments. Our results highlight the potential importance of nutritional mechanisms in shaping dominance interactions in a wide range of social and ecological contexts. Nutrition likely influences social interactions in many species, and yet a theoretical framework for exploring these effects is currently lacking. Combining social network analyses with computational models from nutritional ecology may bridge this divide, representing a pragmatic approach for generating theoretical predictions for nutritional experiments.
authors: Charles Perkins Centre, The University of SydneySydney, NSW, Australia; School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of SydneySydney, NSW, Australia.
authors: Alistair M
authors: AM
authors: Senior
authors: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition AnimaleToulouse, France; Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Université Paul SabatierToulouse, France.
authors: Mathieu
authors: M
authors: Lihoreau
authors: School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, The University of Adelaide Adelaide, SA, Australia.
authors: Camille
authors: C
authors: Buhl
authors: Charles Perkins Centre, The University of SydneySydney, NSW, Australia; Faculty of Veterinary Science, The University of SydneySydney, NSW, Australia; School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of SydneySydney, NSW, Australia.
authors: David
authors: D
authors: Raubenheimer
authors: Charles Perkins Centre, The University of SydneySydney, NSW, Australia; School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of SydneySydney, NSW, Australia.
authors: Stephen J
authors: SJ
authors: Simpson
keywords: animal behavior; dominance hierarchy; geometric framework; nutrition; nutritional geometry; social networks