PDF(Pubmed)
Abstract：
Extreme weather conditions, like heatwave events, are becoming more frequent with climate change. Animals often modify their behaviour to cope with environmental changes and extremes. During heat stress conditions, individuals change their spatial behaviour and increase the use of shaded areas to assist with thermoregulation. Here, we suggest that for social species, these behavioural changes and ambient conditions have the potential to influence an individual\'s position in its social network, and the social network structure as a whole. We investigated whether heat stress conditions (quantified through the temperature humidity index) and the resulting use of shaded areas, influence the social network structure and an individual\'s connectivity in it. We studied this in free-ranging sheep in the arid zone of Australia, GPS-tracking all 48 individuals in a flock. When heat stress conditions worsened, individuals spent more time in the shade and the network was more connected (higher density) and less structured (lower modularity). Furthermore, we then identified the behavioural change that drove the altered network structure and showed that an individual\'s shade use behaviour affected its social connectivity. Interestingly, individuals with intermediate shade use were most strongly connected (degree, strength, betweenness), indicating their importance for the connectivity of the social network during heat stress conditions. Heat stress conditions, which are predicted to increase in severity and frequency due to climate change, influence resource use within the ecological environment. Importantly, our study shows that these heat stress conditions also affect the animal\'s social environment through the changed social network structure. Ultimately, this could have further flow on effects for social foraging and individual health since social structure drives information and disease transmission.
摘要：
极端天气条件,比如热浪事件，随着气候变化变得越来越频繁。动物经常改变自己的行为来应对环境变化和极端情况。在热应力条件下，个体改变他们的空间行为，增加阴影区域的使用，以协助体温调节。这里,我们建议对于社会物种，这些行为变化和环境条件有可能影响个人在其社交网络中的地位，以及整个社会网络结构。我们调查了热应力条件（通过温度湿度指数量化）和由此产生的阴影区域的使用，影响社会网络结构和个人在其中的连通性。我们在澳大利亚干旱地区的自由放养绵羊中进行了研究，GPS跟踪羊群中的所有48个人。当热应力条件恶化时，个人在阴凉处花费更多的时间，网络更紧密（密度更高），结构更少（模块化更低）。此外，然后，我们确定了导致网络结构改变的行为变化，并表明个人的阴影使用行为影响了其社会连通性。有趣的是,中间使用阴影的个体联系最紧密(程度，力量,介数)，表明它们在热应激条件下对社交网络连通性的重要性。热应力条件，预计由于气候变化的严重程度和频率会增加，影响生态环境内的资源利用。重要的是,我们的研究表明，这些热应激条件也通过改变社会网络结构影响动物的社会环境。最终,由于社会结构驱动信息和疾病传播，这可能会对社会觅食和个人健康产生进一步的影响。
