Social networks and natural selection in changing societies

Introduction

Social interactions can improve support, resources, and protection, but can also increase disease, stress, and conflict. Consequently, for group-living species, including humans, traits as diverse as personality, residence patterns, family living, and disease resistance all evolve in response to the pros and cons of sociality.

Research Gap

However, the direct links between sociality, health, fitness outcomes, and ultimately natural selection are not well-known.

Project Overview

KinSocieties reveals, for the first time, the benefits and costs of sociality accrued by individuals and whole societies in two complementary study species - humans and Asian elephants - facing current drastic changes in social structures due to the breakdown of kin networks.

Methodology

I use rare longitudinal data and two previously unstudied natural experiments to investigate the effects of translocation to new social environments, addressed in 6 work packages (WPs):

1. How have human social networks transformed with the modernization of societies and associated with reproduction, cause of death, and lifespan at different times?
2. How does population structuring in humans affect reproduction, cause of death, and lifespan?
3. How does population structuring in Asian elephants affect reproduction, cause of death, and lifespan?
4. How is translocation to a new area with/without kin or friends in humans related to subsequent integration, social networks, reproduction, lifespan, and cause of death?
5. How is translocation to new working units with or without kin, friends, or social groups in Asian elephants associated with stress, health, and friendship formation?
6. Synthesize the costs and benefits of dynamic social structures in a modeling framework.

Interdisciplinary Approach

This research boldly combines approaches from social sciences, conservation, evolutionary demography, and biology.

Implications

The results have key theoretical and practical consequences, making critical contributions to public health by revealing concrete costs and benefits tied to social relationships and their changes in the rapidly changing world of today.