Social network dynamics: the importance of distinguishing between heterogeneous and homogeneous changes.

ABSTRACT: Social network analysis is increasingly applied to understand the evolution of animal sociality. Identifying ecological and evolutionary drivers of complex social structures requires inferring how social networks change over time. In most observational studies, sampling errors may affect the apparent network structures.Here, we argue that existing approaches tend not to control sufficiently for some types of sampling errors when social networks change over time. Specifically, we argue that two different types of changes may occur in social networks, heterogeneous and homogeneous changes, and that understanding network dynamics requires distinguishing between these two different types of changes, which are not mutually exclusive. Heterogeneous changes occur if relationships change different

SUBMITTER: Franz M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6112818 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature