Data from: The role of social and ecological processes in structuring animal populations: a case study from automated tracking of wild birds

Both social and ecological factors influence population process and structure, with resultant consequences for phenotypic selection on individuals. Understanding the scale and relative contribution of these two factors is thus a central aim in evolutionary ecology. In this study, we develop a framework using null models to identify the social and spatial patterns that contribute to phenotypic structure in a wild population of songbirds. We used automated technologies to track 1053 individuals that formed 73 737 groups from which we inferred a social network. Our framework identified that both social and spatial drivers contributed to assortment in the network. In particular, groups had a more even sex ratio than expected and exhibited a consistent age structure that suggested local association preferences, such as preferential attachment or avoidance. By contrast, recent immigrants were spatially partitioned from locally born individuals, suggesting differential dispersal strategies by phenotype. Our results highlight how different scales of social decision-making, ranging from post-natal dispersal settlement to fission–fusion dynamics, can interact to drive phenotypic structure in animal populations.

社会因素与生态因素共同影响种群动态与种群结构，并进而对个体的表型选择产生连带效应。因此，明确这两类因素的作用尺度与相对贡献，是进化生态学的核心研究目标之一。在本研究中，我们构建了一套基于零模型（null models）的分析框架，用以识别野生鸣禽种群中驱动表型结构形成的社会与空间格局。我们采用自动化技术对1053只个体开展追踪，这些个体共组建73737个群体，据此我们推导得到其社交网络（social network）。本研究的分析框架显示，社会驱动因子与空间驱动因子均对该网络中的选型聚集现象产生了影响。具体而言，群体的性比相较于预期更为均衡，且呈现出稳定的年龄结构，这表明个体存在本地社交偏好，例如优先连接或回避的社交选择。与之形成对比的是，新近迁入的个体与本地出生个体存在空间分隔，这表明不同表型的个体采用了差异化的扩散策略。本研究结果揭示了从产后扩散定居到群体裂变-融合动态（fission–fusion dynamics）的不同尺度社交决策过程，是如何相互作用进而推动动物种群表型结构形成的。