ArticleAnimal behaviour2015
Consistent individual differences in the social phenotypes of wild great tits,
Article in Animal behaviour, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 66 papers.
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Who cites it
66 citing papers in PubMed, 167 citations in OpenAlex.
- Sociability Under Anthropogenic Change: From Individual Behaviour to Population-Level Consequences.Ecology and evolution · 2026Review
- Windy weather drives social structure in wild zebra finches.Movement ecology · 2026Article
- Social and spatial drivers of the multitiered structure of zebra finch social networks.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Timing and social dynamics of divorce in wild great tits: a phenomenological approach.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Close Males Sing With Dissimilar Minimum Frequency and Repertoire Size in a Wild Passerine.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Social information use increases with decreasing winter temperature in a passerine bird.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Impact of proximity definitions and sampling rates on social networks in pigs based on tracking using computer vision.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Genetic, natal and spatial drivers of social phenotypes in wild great tits.The Journal of animal ecology · 2025Article
- Pair-bond strength is consistent and related to partner responsiveness in a wild corvid.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Animal social networks are robust to changing association definitions.Behavioral ecology and sociobiology · 2025Article
- Not so social in old age: demography as one driver of decreasing sociality.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Behavioural underpinning of mito-nuclear discordances: insights from fire salamanders.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Active crocodiles are less sociable.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Behavioral syndromes in paper wasps: Links between social and non-social personality inCurrent zoology · 2024Article
- Aggressive interactions influence cognitive performance in Western Australian magpies.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Article
- Female behavior drives the formation of distinct social structures in C57BL/6J versus wild-derived outbred mice in field enclosures.BMC biology · 2024Article
- Variation in local population size predicts social network structure in wild songbirds.The Journal of animal ecology · 2023Article
- Group-level differences in social network structure remain repeatable after accounting for environmental drivers.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- Ingrained city rhythms: flexible activity timing but more persistent circadian pace in urban birds.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
6 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
14 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Despite growing interest in animal social networks, surprisingly little is known about whether individuals are consistent in their social network characteristics. Networks are rarely repeatedly sampled; yet an assumption of individual consistency in social behaviour is often made when drawing conclusions about the consequences of social processes and structure. A characterization of such social phenotypes is therefore vital to understanding the significance of social network structure for individual fitness outcomes, and for understanding the evolution and ecology of individual variation in social behaviour more broadly. Here, we measured foraging associations over three winters in a large PIT-tagged population of great tits, and used a range of social network metrics to quantify individual variation in social behaviour. We then examined repeatability in social behaviour over both short (week to week) and long (year to year) timescales, and investigated variation in repeatability across age and sex classes. Social behaviours were significantly repeatable across all timescales, with the highest repeatability observed in group size choice and unweighted degree, a measure of gregariousness. By conducting randomizations to control for the spatial and temporal distribution of individuals, we further show that differences in social phenotypes were not solely explained by within-population variation in local densities, but also reflected fine-scale variation in social decision making. Our results provide rare evidence of stable social phenotypes in a wild population of animals. Such stable social phenotypes can be targets of selection and may have important fitness consequences, both for individuals and for their social-foraging associates.
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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.