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Fitness consequences of social network position in a wild population of forked fungus beetles ( Bolitotherus cornutus )
Author(s) -
FORMICA V. A.,
WOOD C. W.,
LARSEN W. B.,
BUTTERFIELD R. E.,
AUGAT M. E.,
HOUGEN H. Y.,
BRODIE E. D.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of evolutionary biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.289
H-Index - 128
eISSN - 1420-9101
pISSN - 1010-061X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2011.02411.x
Subject(s) - biology , intraspecific competition , centrality , population , inclusive fitness , sexual selection , selection (genetic algorithm) , social network (sociolinguistics) , natural selection , ecology , evolutionary biology , demography , statistics , mathematics , artificial intelligence , sociology , computer science , political science , social media , law
Social networks describe the pattern of intraspecific interactions within a population. An individual’s position in a social network often is expected to influence its fitness, but only a few studies have examined this relationship in natural populations. We investigated the fitness consequences of network position in a wild beetle population. Copulation success of male beetles positively covaried with strength (a measure of network centrality) and negatively covaried with clustering coefficient (CC) (a measure of cliquishness). Further analysis using mediation path models suggested that the activity level of individuals drove the relationships between strength and fitness almost entirely. In contrast, selection on CC was not explained by individual behaviours. Although our data suggest that social network position can experience strong sexual selection, it is also clear that the relationships between fitness and some network metrics merely reflect variation in individual‐level behaviours.