Data from: Consistency of animal social networks after disturbance

Social networks encompass both individual and group phenotypes that have been shown to covary with fitness in several species. In order for network characters to be evolutionarily important, they must reliably reflect properties of an individual or groups of individuals; however, it is unknown whether network traits are consistently expressed at either level. To determine if measurable components of individual social network position were repeatable and if the network structure as a whole was consistent in Bolitotherus cornutus (the forked fungus beetle) we constructed eight experimental populations. Half of the populations were disturbed between two observation periods. Two individual network metrics (strength and betweenness) were significantly repeatable across time in all treatments; a third (clustering coefficient) was not. At the network level, all three metrics changed more in undisturbed than disturbed networks. These findings suggest that individual network position can be a consistent property of individuals that is resilient to disturbance and could experience selection in a predictable fashion. However, group network structure seems to change over time unless reset by disturbance.

社交网络涵盖个体与群体表型，已有研究证实这类表型在多个物种中与适合度（fitness）呈共变关系。若网络特征要具备进化重要性，则必须可靠反映个体或群体的属性；但目前尚不明确网络性状在这两个层面是否均可稳定表达。为探究叉角真菌甲虫（Bolitotherus cornutus）的个体社交网络地位可测组分是否具备可重复性，以及其整体网络结构是否保持稳定，我们构建了8个实验种群。其中半数种群在两次观测周期间接受了干扰处理。两项个体网络指标——节点强度（strength）与中介中心性（betweenness）——在所有处理组中均表现出显著的时间可重复性；第三项指标（聚类系数，clustering coefficient）则未呈现该特性。在群体网络层面，三项指标在未受干扰的网络中的变化幅度均大于受干扰的网络。上述研究结果表明，个体的网络地位可作为个体的稳定属性，具备抗干扰能力，并能以可预测的方式经受选择作用。但群体网络结构似乎会随时间发生改变，除非通过干扰处理使其重置。