ArticleIntegrative zoology2017
Inter-group associations in Mongolian gerbils: Quantitative evidence from social network analysis.
Article in Integrative zoology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 18 citations in OpenAlex.
- Foraging Under Competition in Mongolian Gerbils: The Influence of Personality and Its Physiological Basis.Integrative zoology · 2026Article
- Spatiotemporal Characteristics and Risk Zonation Analysis of Rodents and Surface-Parasitic Fleas - Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China, 2013-2021.China CDC weekly · 2024Article
- Distribution of Vasopressin 1a and Oxytocin Receptor Binding in the Basal Forebrain and Midbrain of Male and Female Mongolian Gerbils.Neuroscience · 2023Article
- Beyond sex and aggression: testosterone rapidly matches behavioural responses to social context and tries to predict the future.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Species-typical group size differentially influences social reward neural circuitry during nonreproductive social interactions.iScience · 2022Article
- Characterization of social behavior in the spiny mouse,Ethology : formerly Zeitschrift fur Tierpsychologie · 2022Article
- Pup ultrasonic isolation calls of six gerbil species and the relationship between acoustic traits and body size.Royal Society open science · 2021Article
- Using Flies to Understand Social Networks.Frontiers in neural circuits · 2021Review
- Relatedness and spatial distance modulate intergroup interactions: experimental evidence from a social rodent.Current zoology · 2019Article
- Vocal networks remain stable after a disturbance in Emei music frogs.Ecology and evolution · 2019Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Animals often interact non-randomly with conspecifics, and association preferences can differ across life-history stages to maximize individuals' fitness. Mongolian gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus) are a social rodent that live in highly seasonal habitats and display seasonal fluctuations in population density, growth rate and the size of overlapped home ranges. Nevertheless, whether gerbils modify their social relationships at different life-history stages remains unknown. Here, we used social network analysis to examine whether social associations differ between the sexes and between life-history stages in a wild population of Mongolian gerbils. We quantified social attributes at both group level (assortativity) and individual level (social differentiation and degree, closeness and betweenness centrality); these attributes reflect individuals' social preferences and their potential influence on others in the network. We found that both male and female gerbils established fewer inter-group social connections during the food-hoarding season than during the breeding season, revealing constraints on sociality. Similarly, during the food-hoarding season, degree centrality and social differentiation increased significantly whereas closeness and betweenness centrality decreased significantly. Together, these results suggest that gerbils have relatively more partners and preferred associations and decreased influence over others in the network during the food-hoarding season. In addition, we found no significant difference in any of the social attribute between males and females, but there was a significant interaction effect between sex and season on degree, closeness and betweenness centrality. Our results demonstrate that Mongolian gerbils adjust their association strategies to adapt to the changes of life history. Such adjustments may balance the costs/benefits associated with survival and reproduction.
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