Abstract: 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.
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.
Reviews:
“Exploring Animal Social Networks shows behavioral biologists how to apply social network theory to animal populations. In doing so, Croft, James, and Krause illustrate the connections between an animal's individual behaviors and how these, in turn, influence and are influenced by behavior at the population level. . . . Valuable for readers interested in using quantitative analyses to study animal social behaviors.”--Choice
“[T]his volume provides an engaging, accessible, and timely introduction to the use of network theory methods for examining the social behavior of animals.”--Noa Pinter-Wollman, Quarterly Review of Biology
“The book is a useful 'handbook' providing detailed, stepwise procedures sufficient to allow the reader to address a broad range of questions about social interactions. . . . The book includes numerous examples of the kind of research questions one might ask, and, thus, it allows the reader to find the analysis that best fits the data set to be analyzed. Thus, even readers with minimal prior knowledge of social network analysis will be able to apply this approach. And if further assistance is needed, the authors provide numerous references to specific procedures that have been used by others.”--Thomas R. Zentall, PsycCRITIQUES
Endorsements:
“An important and timely addition to the literature. This book should be readily accessible to researchers who are interested in animal social organization but who have little or no experience in conducting network analysis. The book is well-written in an engaging style and contains a good number of examples drawn from a range of taxonomic groups.”--Paul R. Moorcroft, Harvard University
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Table of Contents:
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
Subject Area:
* Biological Sciences

Abstract: Abstract  Although there are some indications that dogs (Canis familiaris) use the eyes of humans as a cue during human–dog interactions, the exact conditions under which this holds true are unclear. Analysing whether the interactive modalities of guide dogs and pet dogs differ when they interact with their blind, and sighted owners, respectively, is one way to tackle this problem; more specifically, it allows examining the effect of the visual status of the owner. The interactive behaviours of dogs were recorded when the dogs were prevented from accessing food that they had previously learned to access. A novel audible behaviour was observed: dogs licked their mouths sonorously. Data analyses showed that the guide dogs performed this behaviour longer and more frequently than the pet dogs; seven of the nine guide dogs and two of the nine pet dogs displayed this behaviour. However, gazing at the container where the food was and gazing at the owner (with or without sonorous mouth licking), gaze alternation between the container and the owner, vocalisation and contact with the owner did not differ between groups. Together, the results suggest that there is no overall distinction between guide and pet dogs in exploratory, learning and motivational behaviours and in their understanding of their owner’s attentional state, i.e. guide dogs do not understand that their owner cannot see (them). However, results show that guide dogs are subject to incidental learning and suggest that they supplemented their way to trigger their owners’ attention with a new distal cue.

Abstract: Elephants show a rich social organization and display a number of unusual traits. In this paper, we analyse reports collected over a thirty-five year period, describing behaviour that has the potential to reveal signs of empathic understanding. These include coalition formation, the offering of protection and comfort to others, retrieving and 'babysitting' calves, aiding individuals that would otherwise have difficulty in moving, and removing foreign objects attached to others. These records demonstrate that an elephant is capable of diagnosing animacy and goal directedness, and is able to understand the physical competence, emotional state and intentions of others, when they differ from its own. We argue that an empathic understanding of others is the simplest explanation of these abilities, and discuss reasons why elephants appear to show empathy more than other non-primate species.

Abstract: Brain mechanisms for communication must establish a correspondence between sensory and motor codes used to represent
the signal. One idea is that this correspondence is established at the level of single neurons that are active when the
individual performs a particular gesture or observes a similar gesture performed by another individual. Although neurons
that display a precise auditory–vocal correspondence could facilitate vocal communication, they have yet to be identified.
Here we report that a certain class of neurons in the swamp sparrow forebrain displays a precise auditory–vocal
correspondence. We show that these neurons respond in a temporally precise fashion to auditory presentation of certain
note sequences in this songbird’s repertoire and to similar note sequences in other birds’ songs. These neurons display
nearly identical patterns of activity when the bird sings the same sequence, and disrupting auditory feedback does not alter
this singing-related activity, indicating it is motor in nature. Furthermore, these neurons innervate striatal structures
important for song learning, raising the possibility that singing-related activity in these cells is compared to auditory
feedback to guide vocal learning.