Stable multi-level social structure is maintained by habitat geometry in a wild bird population

Abstract

Social structure can have profound evolutionary and ecological implications for animal populations. Structure can arise and be maintained via social preferences or be indirectly shaped by habitat structure. Understanding how social structure emerges is important for understanding the potential links between social structure and evolutionary and ecological processes. Here, we study a large community of wild birds fitted with uniquely-coded passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags and recorded on a grid of automated feeders fitted with radio frequency identification (RFID) antennae. We show that both large-scale and fine-scale network communities are consistent across years in this population, despite high generational turn-over. Studying the process that generates community structure, here the movement of individual birds across the woodland, suggests an important role of habitat geometry in shaping population-level social community structure. Our study highlights how relatively simple factors can produce apparent emergent social structure at the population scale, which has widespread implications for understanding eco-evolutionary dynamics.