Cédric Sueur

Fellowship 2012

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Cédric Sueur is Assistant Professor (Maître de Conférences) at the University of Strasbourg since 2011. He is mainly working on animal behaviour and specifically on social networking and decision-making in animal groups at the Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien (IPHC), in Evolutionary Ethology, at the Department of Ecology, Physiology and Ethology. He recently obtained a grant from the French national Research Agency (ANR) on social networks in drosophila. Cédric Sueur is at the head of a network entitled “Social Network Analysis in Animal Societies” linking about ten scientists and member of the council of several societies in Animal Behaviour and Complex Systems.

Social networks as a trade-off between optimal decision-making, information transmission and reduced disease transmission

Post-doc : Julie Duboscq

Although living in groups has many advantages, it also involves certain disadvantages such as increased disease transmission and the need to make collective decisions. In theory, the social network properties optimizing decision accuracy and the spreading of information should also increase the disease transmission rate, creating a trade-off between decision-making efficiency and infection risk. We aim to explore this trade-off by examining social network properties and investigating how they might interact to maximize decision accuracy and minimize infection risk. We propose an evaluation of this trade-off in insects and non-human primates using both experimental and theoretical approaches.

The project is innovative and multidisciplinary because it: (1) compares information versus disease transmission; (2) uses insect and primate models; (3) combines observation and experimentation with modelling. Our approach is designed to highlight mechanisms underlying decision accuracy and disease transmission, with social networks reflecting a trade-off between these variables. In particular, although information and disease flow networks have been independently studied before, this study aims to directly investigate the costs and benefits of social networks for a specific optimization of this trade-off in diverse species groups. This work thus extends previous pioneer projects into revolutionary new areas.