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5,666 results for “Social”
Data from: The effect of social environment on bird song: listener-specific expression of a sexual signal
<p><span>Animal signals should consistently differ among individuals to convey distinguishable information about the signalers. However, behavioral display signals, such as bird song are also loaded with considerable within-individual variance with mostly unknown function. We hypothesized that the immediate social environment may play a role in mediating such variance component, and investigated in the collared flycatcher (<i>Ficedula albicollis</i>) if the identity and quality of listeners could affect song production in signalers. After presenting territorial males with either a female or male social stimulus, we found in the subsequent song recordings that the among-stimulus effects corresponded to non-zero variance components in several acoustic traits indicating that singing males are able to plastically adjust their songs according to stimulus identity. Male and female stimuli elicited different responses as the identity of the female stimuli affected song complexity only, while the identity of male stimuli altered also song length, maximum frequency and song rate. The stimulus-specific effect on song in some cases decreased with time, being particularly detectable right after the removal of the stimulus and ceasing later, but this pattern varied across the sex of the stimulus and the song traits. We were able to identify factors that can explain the among-stimulus effects (e.g. size and quality of the stimuli) with roles that also varied among song traits. Our results confirm that the variable social environment can raise considerable variation in song performance, highlighting that within-individual plasticity of bird song can play important roles in sexual signaling.</span></p>
Winter associations predict social and extra-pair mating patterns in a wild songbird
<p>Despite decades of research, our understanding of the underlying causes of within-population variation in patterns of extra-pair paternity (EPP) remains limited. Previous studies have shown that extra-pair mating decisions are linked to both individual traits and ecological factors. Here, we examine whether social associations among individuals prior to breeding also shape mating patterns, specifically the occurrence of EPP, in a small songbird, the blue tit. We test whether associations during the non-breeding period predict (1) future social pairs, (2) breeding proximity, i.e. the distance between breeding individuals, and (3) the likelihood that individuals have extra-pair young together. Individuals that were more strongly associated (those that foraged more often together) during winter tended to nest closer together. This, by itself, predicts EPP patterns, because most extra-pair sires are close neighbours. However, even after controlling for spatial effects, female-male dyads with stronger social associations prior to breeding were more likely to have extra-pair young. Our findings reveal a carry-over from social associations into future mating decisions. Quantifying the long-term social environment of individuals and studying its dynamics is a promising approach to enhance our understanding of the process of (extra-) pair formation. </p>
How partisanship and public health concerns affect individuals' social mobility during COVID-19
<p>Rampant partisanship in the United States may be the largest obstacle to the reduced social mobility most experts see as critical to limiting the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Analyzing a total of just over 1.1 million responses collected daily between April 4<sup>th</sup> and September 10<sup>th</sup> reveals not only that partisanship is more important than public health concerns for explaining individuals' willingness to stay-at-home and reduce social mobility, but also that the effect of partisanship has grown over time – especially among Republicans. All else equal, the relative importance of partisanship for the increasing (un)willingness of Republicans to stay-at-home highlights the challenge that politics poses for public health.</p>
Social Media Alerts can Improve, but not Replace Hydrological Models for Forecasting Floods
<p>Social media can be used for disaster risk reduction as a complement to traditional information sources, and the literature has suggested numerous ways to achieve this. In the case of floods, for instance, data collection from social media can be triggered by a severe weather forecast and/or a flood prediction. By way of contrast, in this paper we explore the possibility of having an entirely independent flood monitoring system which is based completely on social media, and which is completely self-activated. This independence and self-activation would bring increased robustness, as the system would not depend on other mechanisms for forecasting. We observe that social media can indeed help in the early detection of some flood events that would otherwise not be detected until later, albeit at the cost of many false positives. Overall, our experiments suggest that social media signals should only be used to complement existing monitoring systems, and we provide various explanations to support this argument.</p> <p>This dataset contains the jupyter notebook and related data for running experiments described in the paper along with an additional table with full list of events considered</p>
Social (-ecological) network analysis in environmental governance - central publications, important concepts and areas of application data collected in January 2019
<p>Social and Social-Ecological Network Analysis (S(E)NA) have recently emerged as new methods in the environmental governance (EG) literature. By investigating networks of connections between actors, S(E)NA advances the understanding of who is involved in EG and how. We provide an overview of the EG literature applying S(E)NA and respective metrics of 1) a citation network analysis, 2) topic detection methods and 3) a similarity network analysis. 20 publications occupy central positions as sources, storers or bridges of knowledge in the citation network. While we see S(E)NA applied in diverse resource contexts, these are mainly discussed on the local spatial level, with a focus on “policy” or “collaboration”. We discover that “power structures” and “the production of knowledge” are themes influencing the whole field.</p>
Social contact data for Belgium (2010-2011)
<p>Social contact data for Belgium in 2010-2011</p>
Quantifying the influence of space on social group structure
<p><strong><a href="http://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.10.419317">Quantifying the influence of space on social group structure</a></strong></p> <p>Series of networks based on individual connections collected from a population of free-ranging house mice (<em>Mus musculus domesticus</em>). Mice are tagged with a passive integrated transponder (PIT) when they reach a minimum weight of 18 grams. The mice use 40 artificial nest boxes, fitted with radio-frequency identification (RFID) antennae, to rest and rear litters. The antennae automatically record when mice equipped with a PIT enter and exit a box. Based on these antennae data, we can determine which individuals share nest boxes and for how long. (For further information on the study system refer to <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1038%2Fs42003-018-0213-5">König et al. 2015</a>).</p> <p>The series of networks is constructed based on the sharing of nest boxes. The series of networks consists of 14 days of antennae data over the duration of 2 years (population size during this time period ranged between 52 to 188 tagged adult house mice). Inactivity periods of the data collection system extended this time window, so that each time window consists of a similar period of active data collection (see also <a href="http://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.24.963512">Liechti et al. 2020</a>). We used total time spent sharing a nest box in seconds as our measure of association strength.</p> <p><strong>Authors</strong>:</p> <p><br> - Julian Evans<sup>1†*</sup>,<br> - Jonas I. Liechti<sup>2†</sup>,<br> - Matthew J. Silk<sup>3,4</sup>,<br> - Barbara König<sup>1‡</sup>,<br> - Sebastian Bonhoeffer<sup>2‡</sup></p> <p><em><sup>†</sup>: Joint first author; <sup>‡</sup>: Joint last author; </em><sup>*</sup>: Corresponding author: jevansbio@gmail.com</p> <p>1: Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich<br> 2: Institute for Integrative Biology, ETH Zurich, Universitätsstrasse 16, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland<br> 3: Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter Penryn Campus, UK<br> 4: Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter Penryn Campus, UK</p> <p><br> <strong>Dataset</strong><br> The raw data of the studied system is present in `graphs` folder in form of a<br> list of [GraphML](http://graphml.graphdrawing.org/) files.<br> The files containing the graphs are numbered according to their order of<br> appearance in the sequence of graphs.</p> <p>Each file contains a single graph the can be imported for example into<br> [igraph](https://igraph.org/r/doc/).</p> <p>The following attributes are stored in the graphml files:</p> <p><em>Graph properties</em>:</p> <p> - start (xml tag: g_start) gives the starting timepoint of<br> aggregation period. The format is `'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS'`.<br> - stop (xml tag: g_stop) gives the ending timepoint of the<br> aggregation period.</p> <p><em>Node propertie</em>s:</p> <p> - name (xml tag: v_name) a unique id for each individual that is consistent<br> across the sequence of graphs.<br> - x position( xml tag: v_x) is the x position [cm] of the barycentre from<br> all interactions of this individual.<br> - y position( xml tag: v_y) is the x position [cm] of the barycentre from<br> all interactions of this individual.</p> <p><em>Edge properties</em>:</p> <p> - weight (xml tag: e_weight) is the weight [seconds] of an interaction.<br> The weight corresponds to the accumulated duration of interactions.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p>
Habitat fragmentation shapes natal dispersal and sociality in an Afrotropical cooperative breeder
<p>It remains poorly understood how effects of anthropogenic activity, such as large-scale habitat fragmentation, impact sociality in animals. In cooperatively breeding species, groups are mostly formed through delayed offspring dispersal, and habitat fragmentation can affect this process in two opposite directions. Increased habitat isolation may increase dispersal costs, promoting delayed dispersal. Alternatively, reduced patch size and quality may decrease benefits of philopatry, promoting dispersal. Here, we test both predictions in a cooperatively breeding bird (placid greenbul, Phyllastrephus placidus) from an Afrotropical cloud forest archipelago. Males born in fragmented forest dispersed about one year earlier than those born in continuous forest. Contrary to females, males also started to reproduce earlier and mostly settled within their natal patch. Females only rarely delayed their dispersal for more than one year, both in fragmented and continuous forests. Our results suggest that early male dispersal and reproduction is jointly driven by a decrease in the value of the natal territory and an increase in local breeding opportunities in fragmented forest. While plasticity in dispersal strategies of cooperative breeders in response to anthropogenic change is believed to optimize reproduction-survival trade-offs, to what extent it shapes the ability of species to respond to rapid environmental change remains to be studied.</p>
Data for: Socially cued anticipatory adjustment of female signalling effort in a moth
<p class="text1stpar">Juvenile population density has profound effects on subsequent adult development, morphology, and reproductive investment. Yet, little is known about how the juvenile social environment affects adult investment into chemical sexual signalling. Male gumleaf skeletonizer moths, <i>Uraba lugens,</i> facultatively increase investment into antennae (pheromone receiving structures) when reared at low juvenile population densities, but whether there is comparable adjustment by females into pheromone investment is not known. We investigate how juvenile population density influences the 'calling' (pheromone-releasing) behaviour of females, and the attractiveness of their pheromones. Female <i>U. lugens</i> adjust their calling behaviour in response to socio-sexual cues: adult females reared in high juvenile population densities called earlier and for longer than those from low juvenile densities. Juvenile density also affected female pheromonal attractiveness: y-maze olfactometer assays revealed that males prefer pheromones produced by females reared at high juvenile densities. This strategic investment in calling behaviour by females, based on juvenile cues that anticipate the future socio-sexual environment, likely reflects a response to avoid mating failure through competition with neighbouring signallers.</p>
Social immunity modulates competition between coinfecting pathogens
<p>Coinfections with multiple pathogens can result in complex within-host dynamics affecting virulence and transmission. Whilst multiple infections are intensively studied in solitary hosts, it is so far unresolved how social host interactions interfere with pathogen competition, and if this depends on coinfection diversity. We studied how the collective disease defenses of ants – their social immunity – influence pathogen competition in coinfections of same or different fungal pathogen species. Social immunity reduced virulence for all pathogen combinations, but interfered with spore production only in different-species coinfections. Here, it decreased overall pathogen sporulation success, whilst simultaneously increasing co-sporulation on individual cadavers and maintaining a higher pathogen diversity at the community-level. Mathematical modeling revealed that host sanitary care alone can modulate competitive outcomes between pathogens, giving advantage to fast-germinating, thus less grooming-sensitive ones. Host social interactions can hence modulate infection dynamics in coinfected group members, thereby altering pathogen communities at the host- and population-level.</p>
Data from: Maternal allocation in relation to weather, predation, and social factors in a colonial cooperative bird
<p>Females may adjust prenatal allocation in relation to ecological conditions that affect reproductive success, such as weather conditions or predation risk. In cooperative breeders, helpers might also influence reproductive success and previous studies suggest that females can lay smaller eggs or larger clutches when breeding with more helpers. Although recent work suggests that helper effects can vary according to climatic variables, how social and ecological factors interact to shape prenatal allocation is poorly understood.</p> <p>Here, we examine how ecological and social components of the breeding environment co-vary with egg mass and clutch size, using as a model the sociable weaver (Philetairus socius), a colonial, cooperatively breeding passerine. The study spanned 9 years and included over 1900 eggs from over 550 clutches. Our analyses combined natural variation in weather conditions (rainfall before each reproductive event) with a nest predator-exclusion experiment and continuous monitoring of the mother's social environment, allowing us to estimate how individual females adjust allocation to reproduction as their number of helpers varies.</p> <p>We found that egg mass varied consistently within females and did not clearly differ in relation to rainfall or predation risk. Contrary to previous studies, there was no evidence for plastic adjustments as females gained and lost helpers and egg mass was instead better predicted by mother size and identity.</p> <p>Females laid larger clutches when breeding in environments where predation risk was experimentally reduced and after higher rainfall levels. Yet, there was no evidence for increasing clutch size as the number of helpers increased, nor for an interaction between helper effects and ecological factors.</p> <p>We conclude that while sociable weaver females can vary their clutch size, they show high individual consistency in egg mass. In addition, we found no evidence that females may maximise fitness through plastic prenatal allocation in relation to the number of helpers, or that the presence/absence of helper effects is modulated by rainfall levels or predation risk. These results challenge our current knowledge on some of the possible benefits of breeding with helpers and call for more long-term analyses on reproductive allocation adjustments in other cooperative systems.</p>
Data from: The transcriptomic and evolutionary signature of social interactions regulating honey bee caste development
The caste fate of developing female honey bee larvae is strictly socially regulated by adult nurse workers. As a result of this social regulation, nurse-expressed genes as well as larval-expressed genes may affect caste expression and evolution. We used a novel transcriptomic approach to identify genes with putative direct and indirect effects on honey bee caste development, and we subsequently studied the relative rates of molecular evolution at these caste-associated genes. We experimentally induced the production of new queens by removing the current colony queen, and we used RNA sequencing to study the gene expression profiles of both developing larvae and their caregiving nurses before and after queen removal. By comparing the gene expression profiles of queen-destined versus worker-destined larvae as well as nurses observed feeding these two types of larvae, we identified larval and nurse genes associated with caste development. Of 950 differentially expressed genes associated with caste, 82% were expressed in larvae with putative direct effects on larval caste, and 18% were expressed in nurses with putative indirect effects on caste. Estimated selection coefficients suggest that both nurse and larval genes putatively associated with caste are rapidly evolving, especially those genes associated with worker development. Altogether, our results suggest that indirect effect genes play important roles in both the expression and evolution of socially influenced traits such as caste.
Data from: Coevolution of cultural intelligence, extended life history, sociality, and brain size in primates
Explanations for primate brain expansion and the evolution of human cognition and culture remain contentious despite extensive research. While multiple comparative analyses have investigated variation in brain size across primate species, very few have addressed why primates vary in how much they use social learning. Here, we evaluate the hypothesis that the enhanced reliance on socially transmitted behavior observed in some primates has coevolved with enlarged brains, complex sociality, and extended lifespans. Using recently developed phylogenetic comparative methods we show that, across primate species, a measure of social learning proclivity increases with absolute and relative brain volume, longevity (specifically reproductive lifespan), and social group size, correcting for research effort. We also confirm relationships of absolute and relative brain volume with longevity (both juvenile period and reproductive lifespan) and social group size, although longevity is generally the stronger predictor. Relationships between social learning, brain volume, and longevity remain when controlling for maternal investment and are therefore not simply explained as a by-product of the generally slower life history expected for larger brained species. Our findings suggest that both brain expansion and high reliance on culturally transmitted behavior coevolved with sociality and extended lifespan in primates. This coevolution is consistent with the hypothesis that the evolution of large brains, sociality, and long lifespans has promoted reliance on culture, with reliance on culture in turn driving further increases in brain volume, cognitive abilities, and lifespans in some primate lineages.
Data from: Paternal personality and social status influence offspring activity in zebrafish
Background: Evidence for the transmission of non-genetic information from father to offspring is rapidly accumulating. While the impact of chemical and physical factors such as toxins or diet on the fitness of the parents and their offspring have been studied extensively, the importance of behavioural and social circumstances has only recently been recognised. Behavioural traits such as personality characteristics can be relatively stable, and partly comprise a genetic component but we know little about the non-genetic transmission of plastic behavioural traits from parents to offspring. We investigated the relative effect of personality and of social dominance as indicators at the opposite ends of the plasticity range on offspring behaviour in the zebrafish (Danio rerio). We assessed male boldness, a behavioural trait that has previously been shown previously to possess genetic underpinnings, and experimentally manipulated male social status to assess the association between the two types of behaviour and their correlation with offspring activity. Results: We found a clear interaction between the relatively stable and putative genetic effects based on inherited differences in personality and the experimentally induced epigenetic effects from changes in the social status of the father on offspring activity. Conclusions: Our study shows that offspring behaviour is determined by a combination of paternal personality traits and non-genetic effects derived from the social status of the father.
Data from: Social call divergence in bats: a comparative analysis
Acoustic signals mediate important life history events in a variety of species, providing new vistas for understanding speciation. It has been proposed that animal acoustic signals undergo complex interactions among morphology, ecology, social pressure, and phylogenetic history. Yet, the relative importance of these factors in shaping acoustic divergence is rarely assessed within a comparative framework. Herein, we aim to investigate the key determinants of social call divergence across 31 bat species from 5 families. We compiled a wide data set on bat aggressive calls, body size, foraging habitats, foraging modes, climatic conditions, colony size, and phylogenetic components. We identified remarkable interspecific divergence versus within-species variation in aggressive vocalizations. Despite weak effects of ecological factors, colony size, body size, and phylogenetic components accounted for the majority of variation in call parameters among species. The colony size and body size played a major role in influencing spectral parameters, whereas phylogenetic relationships determined call duration and minimum frequency. Together, our findings constitute convincing evidence that sociality, morphological constraint, and phylogenetic constraint mold social call divergence in bats. This study expands our limited knowledge of the evolution of bat social calls, and highlights the importance of sociality in driving acoustic phenotype diversity.
Data from: The personal and social experiences of community-dwelling younger adults after stroke in Australia: a qualitative interview study
Objectives: To examine the personal and social experiences of younger adults after stroke. Design: Qualitative study design involving in-depth semi-structured interviews and rigorous qualitative descriptive analysis informed by social constructionism. Participants: Nineteen young stroke survivors aged 18 to 55 at the time of their first-ever stroke. Setting: Participants were recruited from urban and rural settings across Australia. Interviews took place in a clinic room of the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health (Melbourne, Australia), over an online conference platform or by telephone. Results: Four main themes emerged from the discourses: (1) psycho-emotional experiences after young stroke; (2) losing pre-stroke life construct and relationships; (3) recovering and adapting after young stroke; and (4) invalidated by the old-age, physical concept of stroke. While these themes ran through the narratives of all participants, data analysis also drew out interesting variation between individual experiences. Conclusions: For many younger adults, stroke is an unexpected and devastating life event that profoundly diverts their biography and presents complex and continued challenges to fulfilling age-normative roles. While adaptation, resilience and post-traumatic growth are common, this study suggests that more bespoke support is needed for younger adults after stroke. Increasing public awareness of young stroke is also important, as is increased research attention to this problem.
Data from: Automated identification of social interaction criteria in Drosophila melanogaster
The study of social behaviour within groups has relied on fixed definitions of an 'interaction'. Criteria used in these definitions often involve a subjectively defined cut-off value for proximity, orientation and time (e.g. courtship, aggression and social interaction networks) and the same numerical values for these criteria are applied to all of the treatment groups within an experiment. One universal definition of an interaction could misidentify interactions within groups that differ in life histories, study treatments and/or genetic mutations. Here, we present an automated method for determining the values of interaction criteria using a pre-defined rule set rather than pre-defined values. We use this approach and show changing social behaviours in different manipulations of Drosophila melanogaster. We also show that chemosensory cues are an important modality of social spacing and interaction. This method will allow a more robust analysis of the properties of interacting groups, while helping us understand how specific groups regulate their social interaction space.
Data from: Conserved class of queen pheromones stops social insect workers from reproducing
A major evolutionary transition to eusociality with reproductive division of labor between queens and workers has arisen independently at least 10 times in the ants, bees, and wasps. Pheromones produced by queens are thought to play a key role in regulating this complex social system, but their evolutionary history remains unknown. Here, we identify the first sterility-inducing queen pheromones in a wasp, bumblebee, and desert ant and synthesize existing data on compounds that characterize female fecundity in 64 species of social insects. Our results show that queen pheromones are strikingly conserved across at least three independent origins of eusociality, with wasps, ants, and some bees all appearing to use nonvolatile, saturated hydrocarbons to advertise fecundity and/or suppress worker reproduction. These results suggest that queen pheromones evolved from conserved signals of solitary ancestors.
Data from: Carry-over effects of the social environment on future divorce probability in a wild bird population
Initial mate choice and re-mating strategies (infidelity and divorce) influence individual fitness. Both of these should be influenced by the social environment, which determines the number and availability of potential partners. While most studies looking at this relationship take a population-level approach, individual-level responses to variation in the social environment remain largely unexplored. Here, we explore carry-over effects on future mating decisions of the social environment in which the initial mating decision occurred,. Using detailed data on the winter social networks of great tits we tested whether the probability of subsequent divorce, a year later, could be predicted by measures of the social environment at the time of pairing. We found that males that had a lower proportion of female associates, and whose partner ranked lower amongst these, as well as inexperienced breeders, were more likely to divorce after breeding. We found no evidence that a female's social environment influenced the probability of divorce. Our findings highlight the importance of the social environment that individuals experience during initial pair formation on later pairing outcomes, and demonstrate that such effects can be delayed. Exploring these extended effects of the social environment can give valuable insights into processes and selective pressures acting upon the mating strategies that individuals adopt.
Data from: The multi-dimensional nature of information drives prioritisation of private over social information in ants
When personally gathered and socially acquired information conflict, animals often prioritise private information. We propose that this is because private information often contains details that social information lacks. We test this idea in an ant model. Ants using a food source learn its location and quality rapidly (private information), whereas pheromone trails (social information) provide good directional information, but lack reliable information about food quality. If this lack is indeed responsible for the choice of memory over pheromone trails, adding information that better food is available should cause foragers to switch their priority to social information. We show it does: while ants follow memory rather than pheromones when they conflict, adding unambiguous information about a better potential food source (a 2µl droplet of good food) reverses this pattern, from 60% of ants following their memory to 75% following the pheromone trail. Using fluorescence microscopy, we demonstrate that food (and thus information) flows from fed workers to outgoing foragers, explaining the frequent contacts of ants on trails. Ants trained to poor food that contact nestmates fed with good food are more likely to follow a trail than ants which received information about poor food. We conclude that social information may often be ignored because it lacks certain crucial dimensions, suggesting that information content is crucial for understanding how and when animals prioritise social and private information.
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Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.