SynthesisPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2015
Infectious disease and group size: more than just a numbers game.
Synthesis in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 75 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
75 citing papers in PubMed, 197 citations in OpenAlex.
- Helminth infection dynamics in rehabilitating Javan slow lorises are driven by time since deworming rather than host traits.International journal for parasitology. Parasites and wildlife · 2026Article
- Experience-dependent modulation of collective behavior in larval zebrafish.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Evolutionary Complexity of Primate Immune System Uncovered by the Extensive Phylogenomic Sampling.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Impact of group size and habitat disturbance on parasitic infection in free-ranging proboscis monkeys.International journal for parasitology. Parasites and wildlife · 2026Article
- How Population Structure and Nest Membership Shape Pathogen Patterns in Bumble Bees.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Decreases in chimpanzee respiratory disease signs and enteric viral quantity following implementation of anthroponotic disease prevention protocols at a long-term research site.Biological conservation · 2025Article
- The spatial distribution of pertussis, but not measles or smallpox, in pre-industrial Finland matches dialects.iScience · 2025Article
- Costs and constraints of cellular immune activity during development in an arboreal primate.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Multi-level societies: different tasks at different social levels.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Inhibitory Systems in Brain Evolution: Pathways of Vulnerability in Neurodevelopmental Disorders.Brain, behavior and evolution · 2025Review
- Exploring changes in social spider DNA methylation profiles in all cytosine contexts following infection.Heredity · 2024Article
- The influence of social and spatial processes on the epidemiology of environmentally transmitted pathogens in wildlife: implications for management.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- The influence of social and spatial processes on the epidemiology of environmentally transmitted pathogens in wildlife: implications for management.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Independent fitness consequences of group size variation in Verreaux's sifakas.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Independent fitness consequences of group size variation in Verreaux's sifakas.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Expanding Understanding of Urban Rift Valley Fever Risk and Associated Vector Ecology at Slaughterhouses in Kisumu, Kenya.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- The role of social attraction and social avoidance in shaping modular networks.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Heat stress conditions affect the social network structure of free-ranging sheep.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Variation in local population size predicts social network structure in wild songbirds.The Journal of animal ecology · 2023Article
- Guppies in large groups cooperate more frequently in an experimental test of the group size paradox.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
15 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 5 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Increased risk of infectious disease is assumed to be a major cost of group living, yet empirical evidence for this effect is mixed. We studied whether larger social groups are more subdivided structurally. If so, the social subdivisions that form in larger groups may act as barriers to the spread of infection, weakening the association between group size and infectious disease. To investigate this 'social bottleneck' hypothesis, we examined the association between group size and four network structure metrics in 43 vertebrate and invertebrate species. We focused on metrics involving modularity, clustering, distance and centralization. In a meta-analysis of intraspecific variation in social networks, modularity showed positive associations with network size, with a weaker but still positive effect in cross-species analyses. Network distance also showed a positive association with group size when using intraspecific variation. We then used a theoretical model to explore the effects of subgrouping relative to other effects that influence disease spread in socially structured populations. Outbreaks reached higher prevalence when groups were larger, but subgrouping reduced prevalence. Subgrouping also acted as a 'brake' on disease spread between groups. We suggest research directions to understand the conditions under which larger groups become more subdivided, and to devise new metrics that account for subgrouping when investigating the links between sociality and infectious disease risk.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.