Social learning mechanisms shape transmission pathways through replicate local social networks of wild birds

Abstract

The emergence and spread of novel behaviours via social learning can lead to rapid population-level changes whereby the social connections between individuals shape information flow. However, behaviours can spread via different mechanisms and little is known about how information flow depends on the underlying learning rule individuals employ. Here, comparing four different learning mechanisms, we simulated behavioural spread on replicate empirical social networks of wild great tits and explored the relationship between individual sociality and the order of behavioural acquisition. Our results reveal that, for learning rules dependent on the sum and strength of social connections to informed individuals, social connectivity was related to the order of acquisition, with individuals with increased social connectivity and reduced social clustering adopting new behaviours faster. However, when behavioural adoption depends on the ratio of an individuals’ social connections to informed versus uninformed individuals, social connectivity was not related to the order of acquisition. Finally, we show how specific learning mechanisms may limit behavioural spread within networks. These findings have important implications for understanding whether and how behaviours are likely to spread across social systems, the relationship between individuals’ sociality and behavioural acquisition, and therefore for the costs and benefits of sociality.

Comparative approaches in social network ecology

“…Comparative network analyses represent an opportunity to explore the consequences of different social systems for pathogen and behaviour spread, as well as to link this to species traits. A nice example of how this could be applied to multi-network comparisons is provided by Beck et al (2023), who compared different social contagions across multiple great tit Parus major social networks, showing how individual network position linked to the order of behaviour acquisition. Extending these types of study to multispecies comparisons could help generalise across diverse taxa.…”

The role of social attraction and social avoidance in shaping modular networks

“…Recent studies have investigated this issue in the context of pathogen and information transmission [5][6][7], indicating that contagions may affect the evolution of social interactions [8]. This has been shown to be dependent on the type of contagion observed [9], social learning [10] and pathogen virulence [6]. Therefore, in nature, myriad factors influence how individuals manage opposing forces in social interaction.…”