TY - JOUR T1 - Social structure and drivers behind asynchronous burrow associations of the desert tortoise JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/025494 SP - 025494 AU - Pratha Sah AU - Kenneth E. Nussear AU - Todd C. Esque AU - Christina M. Aiello AU - Peter J. Hudson AU - Shweta Bansal Y1 - 2015/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/09/14/025494.abstract N2 - For several species, refuges (such as burrows, dens, roosts, nests) are an essential resource for protection from predators and extreme environmental conditions. Refuges also serve as focal sites of social interactions including mating, courtship and aggression. Knowledge of refuge use patterns can therefore provide information about social structure as well mating and foraging success of wildlife populations, especially for species considered to be relatively solitary. In this study, we sought to (a) infer social associations of the desert tortoise through their asynchronous burrow associations, and (b) provide mechanisms behind individual-level variation in burrow use networks using a model of burrow switching (to describe variation in tortoise behavior) and burrow popularity (to describe variation from the perspective of burrows). Although considered to be relatively solitary, we found tortoise social networks to be significantly different than null networks of random associations, with geographical locations having a moderate influence on tortoises’ associations. Seasonal variation and local tortoise/burrow density had a strong impact on individual’s burrow switching behavior. Among the three population stressors included in the model (translocation, drought, disease), translocation had the largest effect on burrow switching. Analysis of variation in burrow popularity revealed older burrows and burrows at rough higher elevation sites are more popular than other burrows in desert tortoise habitat. Our study emphasizes the role of combining graph theoretic and statistical approaches to examine the social structure of (relatively) solitary species to design effective conservation and management strategies including control of future infection spread. ER -