Communications of the ACM
'facebook For Animals' Tested on Birds
Credit: Birdguides.com
Oxford University researchers have developed a way of analyzing the social networks that link individual animals to each other via their study of around one million observations of wild great tits (Parus major).
The researchers say the approach can automatically identify periods of intense social activity within a large number of observations, which makes it possible to examine these periods in greater detail and calculate which individuals are real "friends," instead of just random passers-by.
"What we have shown is that we can analyze data about individual animals, in this case great tits, to construct a 'Facebook for animals' revealing who affiliates with who, who are members of the same group, and which birds are regularly going to the same gatherings or 'events,'" says Oxford's Ioannis Psorakis.
The researchers found that their predictions based on their data about which birds were "friends," as well as which birds were starting the process of pairing up or were already in a pair, matched visual observations made by zoologists. The results suggest that individual birds do not participate in flocks at random, but favor other members of the population they interact with.
The work could help researchers understand how information spreads through animal populations.
From University of Oxford
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