Matthew J. Silk

University of Edinburgh | UoE · Institute of Evolutionary Biology

One of the main aims of wildlife disease ecology is to identify how disease dynamics vary in space and time and as a function of population density. However, monitoring spatiotemporal and density‐dependent disease dynamics in the wild is challenging because the observation process is error‐prone, which means that individuals, their disease status,...

Animal movements are typically influenced by multiple environmental factors simultaneously, and individuals vary in their response to this environmental heterogeneity. Therefore, understanding how environmental aspects, including biotic, abiotic, and anthropogenic factors, influence the movements of wild animals is an important focus of wildlife re...

The benefits of social living are well established, but sociality also comes with costs, including infectious disease risk. This cost–benefit ratio of sociality is expected to change across individuals’ lifespans, which may drive changes in social behaviour with age. To explore this idea, we combine data from a group-living primate for which social...

Social networks constitute an important approach in the study of animal social behaviour. So far, focus has been on statistical analysis of animal social network structures. However, social networks can also be studied by generative network models - procedures that create simulated network structures. These models play a key role in wider network s...

High population density should drive individuals to more frequently share space and interact, producing better-connected spatial and social networks. Despite this widely-held assumption, it remains unconfirmed how local density generally drives individuals' positions within wild animal networks. We analysed 34 datasets of simultaneous spatial and s...

1. Transmission of infection is affected by the spatial-temporal dynamics of host contacts. Domestic dogs Canis familiaris share pathogens with humans and wildlife, and managing dog-mediated diseases is a priority for public health and conservation interests. 2. We combined proximity sensors and GPS tracking to analyse spatial-temporal variation in...

Animal communication is frequently studied with conventional network representations that link pairs of individuals who interact, for example, through vocalization. However, acoustic signals often have multiple simultaneous receivers, or receivers integrate information from multiple signallers, meaning these interactions are not dyadic. Additionall...

The benefits of social living are well established, but sociality also comes with costs, including infectious disease risk. This cost-benefit ratio of sociality is expected to change across individuals′ lifespans, which may drive changes in social behaviour with age. To explore this idea, we combine data from a group-living primate for which social...

Animal movements are typically influenced by multiple environmental factors simultaneously and individuals vary in their response to this environmental heterogeneity. Therefore, understanding how environmental aspects, including biotic, abiotic and anthropogenic factors, influence the movements of wild animals is an important focus of wildlife rese...

Animal social systems are remarkably diverse. Linking this diversity to its ecological and evolutionary drivers and consequences has been a major focus of biological research. Initial efforts have been done within groups, populations, and species. Equipped with this information, researchers are now turning to investigations of social structure that...

Animals use social grouping for numerous fitness-enhancing processes, such as foraging, social learning, defense, and energy expenditure. One broadly referenced negative consequence of social grouping is the increased risk of exposure to parasites, which are defined broadly here as organisms with obligate, persistent, and harmful consumer associati...

Social systems vary enormously across the animal kingdom, with important implications for ecological and evolutionary processes such as infectious disease dynamics, anti‐predator defence, and the evolution of cooperation. Comparing social network structures between species offers a promising route to help disentangle the ecological and evolutionary...

Wildlife populations may be the subject of management interventions for disease control that can have unintended, counterproductive effects. Social structure exerts a strong influence over infectious disease transmission in addition to other characteristics of populations such as size and density that are the primary target for disease control. Soc...

Predicting what factors promote or protect populations from infectious disease is a fundamental epidemiological challenge. Social networks, where nodes represent hosts and edges represent direct or indirect contacts between them, are important in quantifying these aspects of infectious disease dynamics. However, how network structure and epidemic p...

Social systems vary enormously across the animal kingdom, with important implications for ecological and evolutionary processes such as infectious disease dynamics, anti-predator defense, and the evolution of cooperation. Comparing social network structures between species offers a promising route to help disentangle the ecological and evolutionary...

Animal communication is frequently studied with conventional network representations that link pairs of individuals who interact, for example, through vocalisation. However, acoustic signals often have multiple simultaneous receivers, or receivers integrate information from multiple signallers, meaning these interactions are not dyadic. Additionall...

Individual host behaviours can drastically impact the spread of infection through a population. Differences in the value individuals place on both socializing with others and avoiding infection have been shown to yield emergent homophily in social networks and thereby shape epidemic outcomes. We build on this understanding to explore how individual...

Social networks are tied to population dynamics; interactions are driven by population density and demographic structure, while social relationships can be key determinants of survival and reproductive success. However, difficulties integrating models used in demography and network analysis have limited research at this interface. We introduce the...

Objectives: Public responses to a future novel disease might be influenced by a subset of individuals who are either sensitized or desensitized to concern-generating processes through their lived experiences during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Such influences may be critical for shaping public health messaging during the next...

Network approaches have revolutionized the study of ecological interactions. Social, movement and ecological networks have all been integral to studying infectious disease ecology. However, conventional (dyadic) network approaches are limited in their ability to capture higher‐order interactions. We present simplicial sets as a tool that addresses...

Agencies reporting on disease outbreaks face many choices about what to report and the scale of its dissemination. Reporting impacts an epidemic by influencing individual decisions directly, and the social network in which they are made. We simulated a dynamic multiplex network model—with coupled infection and communication layers—to examine behavi...

Predicting what factors promote or protect populations from infectious disease is a fundamental epidemiological challenge. Social networks, where nodes represent hosts and edges represent direct or indirect contacts between them, are key to quantifying these aspects of infectious disease dynamics. However, understanding the complex relationships be...

Many pathogens of public health and conservation concern persist in host communities. Identifying candidate maintenance and reservoir species is therefore a central component of disease management. The term maintenance species implies that if all species but the putative maintenance species were removed, then the pathogen would still persist. In th...

Social networks are tied to population dynamics; interactions are driven by population density and demographic structure, while social relationships can be key determinants of survival and reproductive success. However, difficulties integrating models used in demography and network analysis have limited research at this interface.Here we introduce...

Anthropogenic disturbances are widely recognized for their far-reaching consequences on the survival and reproduction of wildlife, but we understand comparatively little about their effects on the social lives of group-living animals. Here we examined these short-Term changes in affiliative behavior as part of a long-Term study on a human-Tolerant...

Successfully navigating a complex social environment can influence fitness (i.e. survival and reproductive success), which can cascade to outcomes in demography and population dynamics. Extensive research has focused on the mechanisms and drivers of fitness variation that result from differences in social structure and interactions, and separately,...

Releasing gamebirds in large numbers for sport shooting may directly or indirectly influence the abundance, distribution and population dynamics of native wildlife. The abundances of generalist predators have been positively associated with the abundance of gamebirds. These relationships have implications for prey populations, with the potential fo...

How self-organization leads to the emergence of structure in social populations remains a fascinating and open question in the study of complex systems. One frequently observed structure that emerges again and again across systems is that of self-similar community, i.e., homophily. We use a game theoretic perspective to explore a case in which indi...

Large animal species are most likely to survive human-induced rapid environmental change if they display high levels of behavioural flexibility. Examining social responses in species that form closely bonded social groups and display high fission–fusion dynamics, such as chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, will help determine their resilience to dynamic...

Reporting of epidemiological data requires coordinated action by numerous agencies, across a multitude of logistical steps. Using collated and reported information to inform direct interventions can be challenging due to associated delays. Mitigation can, however, occur indirectly through the public generation of concern, which facilitates adherenc...

The global pandemic of COVID-19 revealed the dynamic heterogeneity in how individuals respond to infection risks, government orders, and community-specific social norms. Here we demonstrate how both individual observation and social learning are likely to shape behavioral, and therefore epidemiological, dynamics over time. Efforts to delay and redu...

Background Individual behavioural decisions are responses to a person’s perceived social norms that could be shaped by both their physical and social environment. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, these environments correspond to epidemiological risk from contacts and the social construction of risk by communication within networks of friend...

Social behavior can have a major impact on the dynamics of infectious disease outbreaks. For animals that live in dense social groups, such as the eusocial insects, pathogens pose an especially large risk because frequent contacts among individuals can allow rapid spread within colonies. While there has been a large body of work examining adaptatio...

Social interactions between animals can provide many benefits, including the ability to gain useful environmental information through social learning. However, these social contacts can also facilitate the transmission of infectious diseases through a population. Animals engaging in social interactions therefore face a trade-off between the potenti...

How self-organization leads to the emergence of structure in social populations remains a fascinating and open question in the study of complex systems. One frequently observed structure that emerges again and again across systems is that of self-similar community, i.e., homophily. We use a game theoretic perspective to explore a case in which indi...

Interactions between hosts and their resident microbial communities are a fundamental component of fitness for both agents. Though recent research has highlighted the importance of interactions between animals and their bacterial communities, comparative evidence for fungi is lacking, especially in natural populations. Using data from 49 species, w...

Social interactions are required for the direct transmission of infectious diseases. Consequently, the social network structure of populations plays a key role in shaping infectious disease dynamics. A huge research effort has examined how specific social network structures make populations more (or less) vulnerable to damaging epidemics. However,...

Capturing the coupled dynamics between individual behavioural decisions that affect disease transmission and the epidemiology of outbreaks is critical to pandemic mitigation strategy. We develop a multiplex network approach to model how adherence to health-protective behaviours that impact COVID-19 spread are shaped by perceived risks and resulting...

Playing video games is often perceived as the antithesis of engaging with, and learning about, the natural world. Nevertheless, there is growing recognition that digital media is now a central part of many people's lives. This has led to increased efforts to harness the power and popularity of digital games for both ecological education and conserv...

Analysing social networks is challenging. Key features of relational data require the use of non-standard statistical methods such as developing system-specific null, or reference, models that randomize one or more components of the observed data. Here we review a variety of randomization procedures that generate reference models for social network...

The nature of contacts between hosts can be important in facilitating or impeding the spread of pathogens within a population. Networks constructed from contacts between hosts allow examination of how individual variation might influence the spread of infections. Studying the contact networks of livestock species managed under different conditions...

Social interactions between animals can provide many benefits, including the ability to gain useful environmental information through social learning. However, these social contacts can also facilitate the transmission of infectious diseases through a population. Animals engaging in social interactions must therefore face a trade-off between the po...

Background: Individual behavioural decisions are responses to both a persons perceived social norms and could be driven by both their physical and social environment. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, these environments correspond to epidemiological risk from contacts and the social construction of risk by communication within networks of fr...

New COVID-19 diagnoses have dropped faster than expected in the United States. Interpretations of the decrease have focused on changing factors (e.g. mask-wearing, vaccines, etc.), but predictive models largely ignore heterogeneity in behaviorally-driven exposure risks among distinct groups. We present a simplified compartmental model with differen...

When selection is imposed by both social and ecological environments, the costs and benefits of social relationships can depend on life-history strategy. We argue that the formation and maintenance of differentiated social relationships will prevail in species and individuals with slow life histories. Social behaviours that benefit survival can pro...

Host life history and demography play important roles in host–pathogen dynamics, by influencing the ability of hosts and their pathogens to coexist. We introduce the concept of demographic competence to describe the ability of host populations to sustain endemic infectious disease. Hosts with high demographic competence are more likely to act as ke...

When studying social behaviour, it can be important to determine whether the behaviour being recorded is actually driven by the social preferences of individuals. Many studies of animal social networks therefore attempt to disentangle social preferences from spatial preferences or restrictions. As such, there are a large number of techniques with w...

Long‐term capture–mark–recapture data provide valuable information on the movements of individuals between locations, and the contemporary and/or co‐located captures of individuals can be used to approximate the social structure of populations. We introduce an r package (CMR net ) that generates social and movement networks from spatially explicit...

Social network methods have become a key tool for describing, modelling and testing hypotheses about the social structures of animals. However, due to the non‐independence of network data and the presence of confounds, specialised statistical techniques are often needed to test hypotheses in these networks. Datastream permutations, originally devel...

Social network analysis is a suite of approaches for exploring relational data. Two approaches commonly used to analyze animal social network data are permutation-based tests of significance and exponential random graph models. However, the performance of these approaches when analyzing different types of network data has not been simultaneously ev...

Many organisms are experiencing changing daily light regimes due to latitudinal range shifts driven by climate change and increased artificial light at night (ALAN). Activity patterns are often driven by light cycles, which will have important consequences for species interactions. We tested whether longer photoperiods lead to higher parasitism rat...

Background Variation in host attributes that influence their contact rates and infectiousness can lead some individuals to make disproportionate contributions to the spread of infections. Understanding the roles of such ‘superspreaders’ can be crucial in deciding where to direct disease surveillance and controls to greatest effect. In the epidemiol...

Contact network analysis has become a vital tool for conceptualizing the spread of pathogens in animal populations and is particularly useful for understanding the implications of heterogeneity in contact patterns for transmission. However, the transmission of most pathogens cannot be simplified to a single mode of transmission and, thus, a single...

Analyzing social networks is challenging. Key features of relational data require the use of non-standard statistical methods such as developing system-specific null, or reference, models that randomize one or more components of the observed data. Here we review a variety of randomization procedures that generate reference models for social network...

Biological systems, at all scales of organisation from nucleic acids to ecosystems, are inherently complex and variable. Biologists therefore use statistical analyses to detect signal among this systemic noise. Statistical models infer trends, find functional relationships and detect differences that exist among groups or are caused by experimental...

Decisions to adhere to health-protective behaviors (e.g. mask-wearing, social distancing, etc.) that impact the spread of COVID-19 are not made in isolation by each individual. They are instead the result of the social construction of perceived risks and resulting community norms. In populations in which disease is unlikely to spread throughout all...

Interactions between hosts and their resident microbial communities are a fundamental component of fitness for both agents. Though recent research has highlighted the importance of interactions between animals and their bacterial communities, comparative evidence for fungi is lacking, especially in natural populations. Using data from 49 species, w...

Social interactions present opportunities for both information and infection to spread through populations. Social learning is often proposed as a key benefit of sociality, while disease epidemics are proposed as a major cost. Multiple empirical and theoretical studies have demonstrated the importance of social structure for the transmission of eit...

Ongoing efforts to combat the global pandemic of COVID-19 via public health policy have revealed the critical importance of understanding how individuals understand and react to infection risks. We here present a model to explore how both individual observation and social learning are likely to shape behavioral, and therefore epidemiological, dynam...

Because of the nature of social interaction or association data, when testing hypotheses using social network data it is common for network studies to rely on permutations to control for confounding variables, and to not also control for them in the fitted statistical model. This can be a problem because it does not adjust for any bias in effect si...

Monitoring postrelease establishment and movement of animals is important in evaluating conservation translocations. We translocated 39 wild pine martens Martes martes (19 females, 20 males) from Scotland to Wales. We released them into forested areas with no conspecifics in 2015, followed by a second release in 2016, alongside the previously relea...

Because of the nature of social interaction or association data, when testing hypotheses using social network data it is common for network studies to rely on permutations to control for confounding variables, and to not also control for them in the fitted statistical model. This can be a problem because it does not adjust for any bias in effect si...

Social network methods have become a key tool for describing, modelling, and testing hypotheses about the social structures of animals. However, due to the non-independence of network data and the presence of confounds, specialized statistical techniques are often needed to test hypotheses in these networks. Datastream permutations, originally deve...

Trading animals between farms and via markets can provide a conduit for spread of infections. By studying trading networks, we might better understand the dynamics of livestock diseases. We constructed ingoing contact chains of cattle farms in Great Britain that were linked by trading, to elucidate potential pathways for the transmission of infecti...

The colonization of Ireland by mammals has been the subject of extensive study using genetic methods and forms a central problem in understanding the phylogeography of European mammals after the Last Glacial Maximum. Ireland exhibits a depauperate mammal fauna relative to Great Britain and continental Europe, and a range of natural and anthropogeni...