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 c...