Implementing network approaches to understand the socioecology of human-wildlife interactions

Human population expansion into nonhuman animals’ habitats has increased interest in the behavioral ecology of human-wildlife interactions. To date, however, whether and how wild animals and their conspecifics form non-random associations in terms of when or where they interact with humans still remains unclear. Here we adopt a comparative approach to address this gap, using social network analysis (SNA). SNA, increasingly implemented to determine human impact on wildlife spatial and social ecology, can be a powerful tool to understand how animal socioecology influences the spatiotemporal distribution of human-wildlife interactions. For 10 groups of rhesus, long-tailed, and bonnet macaques (Macaca spp.) living in anthropogenically-impacted environments in Asia, we collected data on human-macaque interactions, animal demographics, and macaque-macaque agonistic and affiliative social interactions. We constructed ‘human-interaction networks’ based on associations between macaques that interacted with humans within the same time and spatial locations, and social networks based on macaque-macaque allogrooming behavior, affiliative behaviors of short duration (agonistic support, lip-smacking, silent bare-teeth displays, and non-sexual mounting), and proximity. Pre-network permutation tests revealed that, for all macaque groups, human-interaction networks showed non-random structures. GLMMs revealed that individuals’ connectedness within human-interaction networks were positively associated their connectedness within affiliation social networks, and social proximity networks although this effect varied across species (bonnets > rhesus > long-tailed). Male macaques were more well-connected in human-interaction networks than females. Neither macaques’ connectedness within grooming social networks nor their dominance ranks had an impact on human-interaction networks. Our findings suggest that, in challenging, time-constraining anthropogenic environments, less time-consuming affiliative behaviors and additionally greater social tolerance (especially in less ecologically flexible species with a shorter history of exposure to human activity) may be key to animals’ maintaining strong social connections. Subsets of these animals may also utilize greater exploratory tendencies and life-histories that are less energetically demanding in the long-term. Both of these strategies may contribute to animals’ propensities to engage in joint risk-taking by being near and engaging with humans. From conservation and public health perspectives, human-interaction networks may inform interventions to mitigate zoonotic disease transmission and move human-wildlife interactions from conflict towards co-existence.