Group and individual social network metrics are robust to changes in resource distribution in experimental populations of forked fungus beetles

Social interactions drive many important ecological and evolutionary processes. It is therefore essential to understand the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that underlie social patterns. A central tenet of the field of behavioral ecology is the expectation that the distribution of resources shapes patterns of social interactions.
We combined experimental manipulations with social network analyses to ask how patterns of resource distribution influence complex social interactions.
We experimentally manipulated the distribution of an essential food and reproductive resource in semi-natural populations of forked fungus beetles (Bolitotherus cornutus). We aggregated resources into discrete clumps in half of the populations and evenly dispersed resources in the other half. We then observed social interactions between individually marked beetles. Half-way through the experiment, we reversed the resource distribution in each population, allowing us to control any demographic or behavioral diffe...