Analyzing Animal Societies
Quantitative Methods for Vertebrate Social Analysis
- Contents
- Review Quotes

Acknowledgments
Conventions and Abbreviations
1: Analyzing Social Structure
1.1: Introduction
1.2: What Is Social Structure?
1.3: Why Social Structure Is Important
1.4: Conceptualizing Animal Societies: A Brief History
1.5: Ethology and Behavioral Ecology
1.6: Hinde’s Ethological Conceptual Framework of Social Structure
1.7: Other Definitions and Concepts of Social Structure
1.8: Elements and Measures of Social Structure
1.9: The Functional Why Questions, and Ecology
1.10: Examples of Social Analyses
1.11: Problems with Analyzing Social Structure
2: Technical Matters
2.1: Modes of Scientific Enquiry
2.2: Basic Descriptive Statistics
2.3: Precision of Statistics: Bootstraps and Jackknives
2.4: Hypothesis Testing
2.5: Data Matrices
2.6: Ordination
2.7: Classification
2.8: Model Fitting and Selection: the Method of Likelihood and the Akaike Information Criterion
2.9: Computer Programs
3: Observing Interactions and Associations: Collecting Data
3.1: Types of Behavior
3.2: Interactions
3.3: Associations
3.4: Groups
3.5: Identifying Individuals
3.6: Class Data
3.7: Collecting Social Data
3.8: Data Formats
3.9: Sampling Periods
3.10: Attributes of Data Sets
3.11: How Large a Data Set Is Needed for Social Analysis?
box 3.1: Precision and Power of Social Analysis
4: Describing Relationships
4.1: Relationships
4.2: Nonsocial Measures of Relationship
4.3: Social Attributes of Individuals, Including Gregariousness
4.4: Rates of Interaction
4.5: Association Indices
box 4.1: Choosing an Association Index: Recommendations
4.6: Temporal Patterning of Interactions/Associations
4.7: Relative Relationships: Multivariate Description of Relationships
4.8: Types of Relationships
4.9: “Special” Relationships: Permutation Tests for Preferred/Avoided Companionships
4.10: Quantifying the Strength of a Relationship and the Bond
4.11: Relationships between Classes
box 4.2: Describing Relationships: Recommendations
5: Describing and Modeling Social Structure
box 5.1: Omitting Individuals from Analyses of Social Structure
5.1: Attributes of Social Structure
5.2: Single-Measure Displays of Social Structure
box 5.2: Visual Displays of Social Structure: General Guidelines
5.3: Network Analysis
box 5.3: Network Analyses: Recommendations
5.4: Dominance Hierarchies
box 5.4: Analyzing Dominance Hierarchies: Recommendations
5.5: Adding Time: Lagged Association Rates
box 5.5: Lagged Association Rates: Recommendations and Extensions
5.6: Multivariate Methods
5.7: Delineating Groups, Units, Communities, and Tiers
box 5.6: Recommendations for Population Division
box 5.7: Describing Social Structure: Recommendations
6: Comparing Societies
6.1: Comparing Social Structures
6.2: Classifying Social Structures
6.3: How Complex Is My Society?
7: What Determines Social Structure, and What Does Social Structure Determine?
7.1: The Individual in Society: Roles
7.2: The Dyad in Society: Conflict
7.3: The Dyad in Society: Cooperation
box 7.1: Quantitative Methods in the Behavioral Ecology of Social Systems
7.4: Environmental Determinants of Social Systems
7.5: Mating Systems and Social Systems
7.6: Culture in Society
8: The Way Forward
8.1: Conceptual Frameworks
8.2: Subjects of Social Analysis
8.3: Collecting Better Data
8.4: Improving Analysis
9: Appendices
9.1: Glossary
9.2: A Key Journal and Some Useful Books
9.3: Computer Programs
9.4: Estimating Social Differentiation
9.5: Assessing Unit Size, Group Size, or Community Size
References
Index
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