Data from: Does landscape connectivity shape local and global social network structure in white-tailed deer?

Intraspecific social behavior can be influenced by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. While much research has focused on how characteristics of individuals influence their roles in social networks, we were interested in the role that landscape structure plays in animal sociality at both individual (local) and population (global) levels. We used female white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in Illinois, USA, to investigate the potential effect of landscape on social network structure by weighting the edges of seasonal social networks with association rate (based on proximity inferred from GPS collar data). At the local level, we found that sociality among female deer in neighboring social groups (n = 36) was mainly explained by their home range overlap, with two exceptions: 1) during fawning in an area of mixed forest and grassland, deer whose home ranges had low forest connectivity were more social than expected; and 2) during the rut in an area of intensive agriculture, deer inhabiting home ranges with high amount and connectedness of agriculture were more social than expected. At the global scale, we found that deer populations (n = 7) in areas with highly connected forest-agriculture edge, a high proportion of agriculture, and a low proportion of forest tended to have higher weighted network closeness, although low sample size precluded statistical significance. This result implies that infectious disease could spread faster in deer populations inhabiting such landscapes. Our work advances the general understanding of animal social networks, demonstrating how landscape features can underlie differences in social behavior both within and among wildlife social networks.

种内社会行为同时受内在与外在因素共同调控。尽管既往大量研究聚焦于个体特征如何影响其在社会网络中的角色，但本研究旨在探讨景观结构在个体（局地）与种群（全局）两个尺度上对动物社会性的作用。我们以美国伊利诺伊州的雌性白尾鹿（Odocoileus virginianus）为研究对象，通过以关联率（基于GPS项圈数据推断的近距离接触）对季节性社会网络的边进行加权，探究景观对社会网络结构的潜在影响。在局地尺度上，我们发现36个相邻社会群体的雌性白尾鹿的社会性主要由其家域重叠度所解释，但存在两个例外：其一，在林草交错区域的产仔期，家域森林连通性较低的鹿群社会性高于预期；其二，在集约化农业区域的发情期，栖息在家域内农业用地占比高且连通性强的鹿群社会性高于预期。在全局尺度上，我们发现7个鹿种群所在区域若具备高度连通的林农交错带、较高的农业用地占比与较低的森林用地占比，其加权网络紧密性往往更高，不过由于样本量较小，该结果未达到统计学显著性。该结果表明，栖息于这类景观中的鹿种群，传染病的传播速度可能更快。本研究深化了学界对动物社会网络的通用认知，阐明了景观特征如何成为野生动物社会网络内部及网络间社会行为差异的底层驱动因素。