Simulated poaching affects global connectivity and efficiency in social networks of African savanna elephants - an exemplar of how human disturbance impacts group-living species

Selective harvest, such as poaching, impacts group-living animals directly through mortality of individuals with desirable traits, and indirectly by altering the structure of their social networks. Understanding the relationship between the structural network changes and group performance in wild animals remains an outstanding problem. To address this knowledge gap, we evaluate the immediate effect of disturbance on group sociality in African savanna elephants - an example, group-living species threatened by poaching. Drawing on static association data from one free ranging population, we constructed 100 virtual networks; performed a series of experiments poaching the oldest, socially central or random individuals; and quantified the immediate change in the theoretical indices of network connectivity and efficiency of social diffusion. Although the virtual networks never broke down, targeted elimination of the socially central conspecifics, regardless of age, decreased network connectivity and efficiency. These findings hint at the need to further study resilience by modeling network reorganization and interaction-mediated socioecological learning, empirical data permitting. Our work is unique in quantifying connectivity together with global efficiency in multiple virtual networks that represent the sociodemographic diversity of elephant populations likely found in the wild. The basic design of our simulation platform makes it adaptable for hypothesis testing about the consequences of anthropogenic disturbance or lethal management on social interactions in a variety of group-living species with limited, real-world data.