The social networks of free-roaming domestic dogs in island communities in the Torres Strait, Australia

The objective of this study was to describe and characterise the social structure of free-roaming dog populations in three communities in the Torres Strait, Australia.Dogs in Kubin, Saibai, and Warraber communities were collared with GPS units that recorded locations at 15 s intervals for up to 1 week, and datasets were obtained from 24 (62% of the dog population), 23 (53%) and 21 (51%) dogs in each community, respectively. An association (potential contact) between dogs was defined as proximity within a spatio-temporal window of 5 m for 30 s. Networks were constructed for each dog population: 1. nodes were individual dogs, and 2. edges were weighted according to the duration of spatio-temporal association between pairs of dogs as a proportion of their simultaneous time monitored. Network statistics were calculated for each population and the robustness of networks to the duration of association between pairs of dogs was assessed in terms of efficiency, degree distribution and fragmentation (number of components).Dog social networks had ‘small-world’ structures, with characteristic clustering and low average shortest-path length between individuals. Overall, all three networks were highly connected in terms of degree distribution and global and local efficiency, but the median tie strength (2—13.5 minutes) was low. Centrality and the duration of association (tie-strength) between dogs were significantly different between communities. The Kubin network was least ...
Source: Preventive Veterinary Medicine - Category: Veterinary Research Source Type: research