Data from: Mechanisms of reciprocity and diversity in social networks: a modelling and comparative approach

Three mechanisms have been proposed to underlie reciprocation of social behaviors in gregarious animals: ‘calculated reciprocity’, ‘emotional bookkeeping’ and ‘symmetry-based reciprocity’. Among these explanations, emotional book-keeping has received the broadest support from experimental and observational studies. On the other hand, three individual-based models have shown that reciprocation may emerge via ‘symmetry-based reciprocity’, ‘emotional bookkeeping’, or a combination of both mechanisms. Here we use these three models to assess their relative fit with empirical data on reciprocation and social network structure across different groups and species of macaques. We collected grooming data from 14 groups and 8 macaque species and simulated each group in each model. We analyzed and quantitatively compared social network metrics of the empirical and the models’ grooming networks. The three models captured fairly well the features of observed networks, and fitted data from wild groups better than captive ones. The emotional bookkeeping model seemed on average to fit slightly better the social networks metrics observed in empirical data, but failed to reproduce some grooming patterns. The symmetry-based models, on the other hand, fitted better other network parameters (e.g. modularity). No model generally fitted the data better than the others, and the fit with some metrics (e.g. modularity, centralization index) was low even after optimization. Thus, our analyses indicate that in the models social interactions may be simpler than in reality and models may miss social processes (e.g. third-party awareness).群居动物的社会行为互惠现象已被提出三种潜在机制：计算型互惠（calculated reciprocity）、情感记账型互惠（emotional bookkeeping）与基于对称性的互惠（symmetry-based reciprocity）。在上述三种解释中，情感记账型互惠得到了实验与观测研究的最广泛支持。另一方面，三项基于个体的模型研究表明，互惠行为可通过基于对称性的互惠、情感记账型互惠，或二者结合的机制产生。本研究利用这三类模型，评估其与不同猕猴类群及物种间的互惠行为与社会网络结构的实证数据的适配程度。我们收集了8种猕猴共14个类群的理毛行为数据，并在每类模型中对每个类群进行模拟。我们对实证数据与模型生成的理毛网络的社会网络指标进行了分析与定量比较。三类模型均较好地还原了观测网络的特征，且对野生类群的适配效果优于圈养类群。平均而言，情感记账型互惠模型对实证数据中的社会网络指标适配性略佳，但无法复现部分理毛行为模式。而基于对称性的互惠模型则对其他网络参数（如模块化程度）的适配效果更优。整体而言，并无任何一类模型能普遍优于其他模型，且即便经过优化，部分指标（如模块化程度、中心化指数）的适配度仍较低。综上，本研究分析表明，模型中的社会互动或较现实更为简化，且模型未能涵盖部分社会过程（如第三方认知）。