DOI: 10.5061/dryad.qbzkh18p5
title: Social interactions generate complex selection patterns in virtual worlds

description: Understanding the influence of social interactions on individual fitness
 is key to improving our predictions of phenotypic evolution. However, we
 often overlook the different components of selection regimes arising from
 interactions among organisms, including social, correlational, and
 indirect selection. This is due to the challenging sampling efforts
 required in natural populations to measure phenotypes expressed during
 interactions and individual fitness. Furthermore, behaviours are crucial
 in mediating social interactions, yet few studies have explicitly
 quantified these selection components on behavioural traits. In this
 study, we capitalize on an online multiplayer videogame as a source of
 extensive data recording direct social interactions among prey, where prey
 collaborate to escape a predator in realistic ecological settings. We
 estimate natural and social selection and their contribution to total
 selection on behavioural traits mediating competition, cooperation, and
 predator-prey interactions. Behaviours of other prey in a group impact an
 individual’s survival, and thus are under social selection. Depending on
 whether selection pressures on behaviours are synergistic or conflicting,
 social interactions enhance or mitigate the strength of natural selection,
 although natural selection remains the main driving force. Indirect
 selection through correlations among traits also contributed to the total
 selection. Thus, failing to account for the effects of social interactions
 and indirect selection would lead to a misestimation of the total
 selection acting on traits. Dissecting the contribution of each component
 to the total selection differential allowed us to investigate the causal
 mechanisms relating behaviour to fitness and quantify the importance of
 the behaviours of conspecifics as agents of selection. Our study
 emphasizes that social interactions generate complex selective regimes
 even in a relatively simple ecological environment.
description: See Methods section in the Main Text of the manuscript and ESM
 for additional information
description: # Social interactions generate complex selection patterns in virtual
 worlds Year 2024 Journal Journal of Evolutionary Biology Authors F
 Santostefano, M Fraser Franco, PO Montiglio file: df_social_selection.csv
 ## Description of the data and file structure \#dt: date of match
 year-month-day \#game_duration: game duration (sec) \#crouching_duration:
 time spent hiding (sec) \#chase_duration: time spent in chase (sec)
 \#unhook_count: # times the player rescues another player \#points: points
 earned (0 to 32000) \#gen_duration: % resources acquired on a total of 500
 (e.g. 100 1 generator, 200 2 generators, etc) \#escaped: has the player
 survived the match? (1 yes, 0 no) \#avg_social_crouching: average time
 spent hiding by the 3 social partners (sec) \#avg_social_chase: average
 time spent in chase by the 3 social partners (sec)
 \#avg_social_unhook:average # of times the 3 social partners unhook
 another player \#avg_social_gen :average % resources acquired done by the
 3 social partners \#Zcrouching: Z transformed time spent hiding (sec)
 \#Zchase : Z transformed time spent in chase (sec) \#Zunhook: Z
 transformed # times the player rescues another player \#Zgen : Z
 transformed % resources acquired \#Zgame_duration Z transformed game
 duration (sec) \#Zsocial_crouching :Z transformed average time spent
 hiding by the 3 social partners (sec) \#Zsocial_chase : Z transformed
 average time spent in chase by the 3 social partners (sec)
 \#Zsocial_unhook : Z transformed average # of times the 3 social partners
 rescues another player \#Zsocial_gen : Z transformed average % resources
 acquired by the 3 social partners \#players_id: anonymized player id
 \#match_id: anonymized match id \#map_code: anonymized map code