Data associated with Balasubramaniam, Beisner et al. (PeerJ, 2016): \"Social buffering and contact transmission: Network connections have beneficial and detrimental effects on Shigella infection risk among captive rhesus macaques\"

In human and animal societies, social connections are among the most critical factors that may influence infectious disease risk. On the one hand, being well-connected within a social network may increase an individual's risk of infection via contact-mediated transmission. On the other hand, connections also strengthen ties of social support and thereby, may socially buffer individuals against infection risk. In two groups of captive rhesus macaques, our study reveals that animals that were socially buffered, i.e. had increased social network connections or “friendships” via their grooming and huddling relationships, were more resistant to infection from an enteric bacterial pathogen: Shigella. Yet in a third group, we reveal that increased huddling connections and aggressive interactions enhanced the likelihood of Shigella infection, presumably via contact-mediated transmission. Our findings emerging from an animal model biologically and behaviorally analogous to humans. They pave the ...