CAREER: Structure and resilience of social networks under population turnover

University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln NE

Investigators

Abstract

Animals live within social networks of individuals that affect each other's lives. However, social networks must change across time; for example, all social networks eventually lose individuals through death or dispersal, and new individuals join social networks through birth and immigration. Thus, the simple and universal processes of birth, death and movement fundamentally shape the structure of social networks at any given time. A major goal of this project is to understand how demography and social behavior interact to affect the development and stability of social networks across time. The project will integrate theoretical models with long-term field research focusing on the social network of flock associations in a wintering migrant bird species, the golden-crowned sparrow. Seasonal social networks in migratory birds allows for the repeated study of the process of network formation with a mix of old and new individuals present in the population each year. As a whole, this project will pose new questions that can shed light on the processes that govern how societies take shape, and the resilience of social structure in the face of constant change, in animal populations and even in human societies. The project will integrate research goals with two different types of educational activities: development of teaching curricula on reproducible research and the recruitment of students of immigrant/refugee background to higher education and science. This project proposes a general framework for understanding the temporal dynamics of social networks under population turnover. The model breaks the process into three steps: node loss, node attachment and social integration. Node loss and node attachment dynamics describe the effects of demography, while social integration captures the processes underlying the formation of new flock associations. This model will enable the study of the joint effects of demography, social processes, and fitness consequences of social position on social network structure. The field-based empirical work will explore natural long-term dynamics in social networks spanning multiple generations of a single avian species. Field experiments will be conducted to test the effects of social position on behaviors such as finding novel food sources, as well as, the effects of social relations on dominance interactions. The educational objectives of this project will make significant contributions towards improving education and enhancing diversity in STEM. This project will enhance the capacity for reproducible research among hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students through development of new curricula. The project will also work to increase recruitment of a significantly overlooked, under-served community, i.e., refugee and immigrant populations in the Midwest. Refugees are hidden sources of diversity in Nebraska and enhancing opportunities for these students will strengthen the U.S. workforce. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.