Geoscience Reference
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changing roles) might also affect the long-term social dynamics of a group that
change the demography and hence the character of the society (Geffen et al.
1996). Effects on social dynamics may be erratically stochastic or predictably
circadian, seasonal, annual, or of an even longer periodicity, largely following
environmental rhythms. Predictable changes in social structure may also fol-
low as a population or group progresses in a social succession toward carrying
capacity after colonization or population crashes. Against this backdrop of
almost continual flux, the study of social dynamics requires the measurement
of changes in behavioral parameters. These measures become the currency
with which to assess predictions designed to test whether the forces of change
have been isolated correctly. The concept of a group's social dynamic is a vital
and often neglected foil to attempts to characterize a typical social structure.
Therefore, the concept of social dynamics lies at the interface of sociobiology,
ethology, and behavioral ecology and even includes aspects of complexity the-
ory and emergent systems. This alone makes it a topic of dauntingly large
scope.
Research on social behavior commonly seeks a conclusion as to whether a
particular type of social interaction maximizes fitness (Krebs and Davies
1991). However, to avoid the hazards of naive interpretation, one cannot draw
such a conclusion without knowing the pattern of other interactions within
which the behavior in question is set. Behavioral ecologists may pick individ-
uals for which they score an approximation of fitness against a continuum of
strategies. This approach is more hazardous as the web of social interactions in
which individuals of a species are enmeshed becomes more complex. Occam's
razor may suggest making the simplest explanation on the basis of what you
observe, but in a social network the system is seldom simple, so it is prudent to
make those observations thoroughly and in a wide context before that razor
can be wielded confidently.
That the social dynamics of a species are both determinants and conse-
quences of its ecology may be clear. To a field ecologist seeking to understand
any part of this loop, it may be much less obvious how to characterize a social
system in replicable, enduring, and quantitative terms as a basis for modern
analysis. Historically, ethology pursued its own agenda—often with captive
primates—of characterizing societies by observing behavioral interactions and
directionality of behaviors within groups (Hemelrijk 1990). Classic etholo-
gists were careful to record the detail of behavior with a view to allowing com-
parisons between studies and between species; although modern comparative
methods have brought elegance to the task of making comparisons, modern
