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Copyright of People & Nature is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The dynamics and adaptive capacity of social-ecological systems are heavily contingent on system structure, which is established through geography, institutions, interactions, and movement. Contrasting views of system structure, as hierarchies and single-level networks respectively, have tended to emphasize the role of either top-down or lateral (peer-to-peer) connections. The concept of a heterarchy aims to capture both top-down and lateral connections on orthogonal axes and has been proposed as a way of unifying alternative approaches to measuring structure, but it has not been fully operationalized for quantifying and comparing system structures. We developed a simple approach to consistently quantifying heterarchical structure across different kinds of networks. We first calculated suitable metrics, including modularity and a hierarchy score, for a wide range of both simulated and real-world systems including food webs, biological, infrastructure, and social networks. Metrics were corrected for differences in size and magnitude. The results were then visualized as a heterarchy matrix. We compared the angle (degrees) and Euclidian distance of each simulated and real-world network from the center of the matrix between network groups. All networks showed distinct placement on the heterarchy matrix. Relative to one another, food webs were laterally polycentric, social networks were mainly pyramidal and coordinated polycentric, and biological networks were pyramidal and laterally polycentric. Our test of concept, although relatively basic, provides strong evidence that system structure cannot be fully understood as purely laterally connected or purely hierarchical. System resilience requires a tradeoff between modularity, aiding redundancy and collaboration; and hierarchy, aiding efficient action. Our approach has the potential to provide a robust, accessible methodology to quantify system structure that allows for universal contextualization, a key step within fields such as resilience and sustainability science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex networks of relationships among and between people and nature (social‐ecological networks) play an important role in sustainability; yet, we have limited empirical understanding of their temporal dynamics.We empirically examine the evolution of a social‐ecological network in a common‐pool resource system faced with escalating social and environmental change over the past two decades.We first draw on quantitative and qualitative data collected between 2002 and 2018 in a Papua New Guinean reef fishing community to provide contextual evidence regarding the extent of social and environmental change being experienced. We then develop a temporal multilevel exponential random graph model using complete social‐ecological network data, collected in 2016 and 2018, to test key hypotheses regarding how fishing households have adapted their social ties in this context of change given their relationships with reef resources (i.e. social‐ecological ties). Specifically, we hypothesized that households will increasingly form tight‐knit, bonding social and social‐ecological network structures (H1 and H3, respectively) with similar others (H2), and that they will seek out resourceful actors with specialized knowledge that can promote learning and spur innovation (H4).Our results depict a community that is largely 'bunkering down' and looking inward in response to mounting risk to resource‐dependent livelihoods and a breakdown in the collaborative processes that traditionally sustained them. Community members are increasingly choosing to interact with others more like themselves (H2), with friends of friends (H1), and with those connected to interdependent ecological resources (H3)—in other words, they are showing a strong, increasing preference for forming bonding social‐ecological network structures and interacting with like‐minded, similar others. We did not find strong support for H4.Bonding network structures may decrease the risk associated with unmonitored behaviour and help to build trust, thereby increasing the probability of sustaining cooperation over time. Yet, increasing homophily and bonding ties can stifle innovation, reducing the ability to adapt to changing conditions. It can also lead to clustering, creating fault lines in the network, which can negatively impact the community's ability to mobilize and agree on/enforce social norms, which are key for managing common resources. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental problems often span a set of challenges that each may engage different policy actors across different policy domains. These challenges, or policy issues, nonetheless exhibit interdependencies that may constrain the ability of actors to work together towards joint solutions.Still, we have limited knowledge about whether and how policy issue interdependencies actually shape how actors collaborate.Using data derived from two venues for collaborative water governance in the Norrström basin, Sweden, we investigate whether and how policy issues and policy issue interdependencies influence actors' selection of collaborative partners. We test two alternative sets of propositions; one set assumes that partner selection is driven by actors' engagement in policy issues and their interdependencies, while the other set emphasises social positions and actor attributes.Our results show that in one venue, actors' choices of collaborative partner were associated with factors from both sets, but not with policy issue interdependencies specifically. In the other venue, only actor and relational attributes shaped social tie formation. These results suggest that how actors interact does not necessarily align with the policy issues and the policy issue interdependencies defined by the environmental problem they are to address.Our results provide an important step towards arriving at evidence‐based recommendations for more effective collaborative efforts in addressing complex environmental problems that no actor can address alone. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Conservation Biology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The effectiveness of collaboration is often explained by the alignment of social networks with collective‐action problem characteristics, yet previous research on social tie formation has focused almost exclusively on actor and relational attributes. We theorize that collective‐action problem characteristics together with actor and relational attributes explain social tie formation and that the relative effect of these factors varies with uncertainty about collaboration partners. The study tests seven hypotheses associated with these factors by estimating multilevel network models of collaboration and task engagement among managers responding to a major wildfire in Sweden. The combination of actors and tasks in a single model captured key characteristics of the collective action problem (task engagements and task interdependencies), and disentangled the relative effects of these factors from actor and relational attributes. Results suggest that social tie formation can be explained both by actors' task engagements, and actor attributes associated with leadership, professionalization, and experience. Further, the effect of task engagements decreases in organizational relationships where collaborative uncertainty is high. Since the alignment of social ties with problem characteristics is supposedly positively associated with collaborative effectiveness, this finding suggests that risk‐aversion is a more deep‐rooted driver of tie formation than the pursuit of collective performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most if not all environmental problems entail conflicts of interest. Yet, different actors and opposing coalitions often but certainly not always cooperate in solving these problems. Hence, processes of conflict and cooperation often work in tandem, albeit much of the scholarly literature tends to focus on either of these phenomena in isolation. Social network analysis (SNA) provides opportunities to study cooperation and conflict together. In this review, we demonstrate how SNA has increased our understanding of the promises and pitfalls of collaborative approaches in addressing environmental problems. The potential of SNA to investigate conflicts in environmental governance, however, remains largely underutilized. Furthermore, a network perspective is not restricted to the social domain. A multilevel social-ecological network perspective facilitates integration of social and environmental sciences in understanding how different patterns of resource access can trigger both cooperation and conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborative approaches to environmental governance are drawing increased interest in research and practice. In this article we investigate the structure and functioning of actor networks engaged in collaboration.We specifically seek to advance understanding of how and why collaborative networks are formed as actors engage in addressing two broad classes of collective action problems: coordination and cooperation. It has been proposed that more risk‐prone cooperative problems favour denser and more cohesive bonding network structures, whereas less risky coordination problems favour sparser and more centralized bridging structures.Recent empirical findings, however, cast some doubts on these assumptions. In building on previous work we propose and evaluate a set of propositions in order to remedy these ambiguities. Our propositions build on the assumption that bridging structures could, if actors experience sufficient levels of trust in the collaborative process, adequately support both cooperation and coordination problems.Our empirical investigation of four UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserves gives initial support for our assumptions, and suggests that bridging structures emerge when actors have trust in the collaborative endeavour, and/or when the cost of collaborative failure is deemed low. While caution is warranted due to data limitations, our findings contribute to improved policies and guidelines on how to stimulate and facilitate more effective collaborative approaches to environmental governance. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We introduce two approaches for assessing different forms of heterogenous brokerage. • We describe methodologies for analyzing social networks using both approaches. • We use the approaches to assess horizontal/vertical brokerage in empirical networks. • We highlight the utility of the approaches in other empirical settings. We present two new approaches for assessing the relative contributions of different types of actors to heterogeneous brokerage in networks. These approaches distinguish between the tendency of certain types of actors to (1) mediate between dissimilar actors (heterogeneous brokerage "activity"), and (2) be the sole mediators between dissimilar actors ("exclusivity"). We present methods for implementing these approaches, using baseline models of tie formation and node removal, respectively. To illustrate the value of both approaches, independently and in combination, we apply them to evaluate horizontal and vertical heterogeneous brokerage in two environmental governance networks. Our analysis reveals certain types of actors with high heterogeneous brokerage activity but low exclusivity (and vice versa), which has important implications for governance processes and outcomes. Likewise, results show many similarities across the evaluated networks, but also some notable differences, suggesting that the incentives and constraints for heterogeneous brokerage vary not only by actor type, but also by network-level contextual differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small‐scale fisheries often involve weak management regimes with limited top‐down enforcement of rules and minimal support from legal institutions, making them useful model systems for investigating the role of social influence in determining economic and environmental outcomes. In such regimes, interpersonal relationships are expected to have a strong effect on a fisher's catch portfolio, the set of fish species targeted by an individual fisher. Here, we test three competing hypotheses about social influence using belief propagation network models and show that a peer‐to‐peer information‐sharing social network is key to explaining catch portfolios at a small‐scale fishery in Jamaica. We find that experience dictates the direction of influence among fishers in the social network, with older fishers and information brokers having distinct roles in shaping catch patterns for large‐ and small‐sized fish species, respectively. These findings highlight concrete opportunities for harnessing social networks in natural resource management. Our new approach to modelling social influence is applicable to many social–ecological systems with minimal legal and institutional support or those that rely heavily on bottom‐up participatory processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The frequency and severity of natural hazards are predicted to increase with climate change. Collaboration among actors across scales and organizational boundaries is essential to address this escalation. Pre-existing social networks are generally considered a catalyst enabling actors to more quickly address collective action problems. However, empirically derived knowledge about if, how, and why pre-established social networks facilitate effective collaborations in addressing natural hazards is scarce. We use survey data from crisis responders of large-scale wildfires in Sweden and Canada to investigate factors that shape actors' (i) ability and willingness to form new social ties with other actors and (ii) propensity to "activate" pre-existing social ties. Our results show that many new social ties were established in both events, but also that pre-existing ties comprised a considerable proportion (54–82%) of all ties in use. Using exponential random graph models for temporal networks, we demonstrate that two actors that are working with or have previously worked with a common third actor are more likely to activate pre-existing social ties. Further, new social ties tend to be formed around a few central actors, whereas the opposite seems to apply for the activation of pre-existing ties. The extent to which actors consider others' organizational affiliation, formal role, previous experience, and level of professionalization differs between the cases. We suggest these tie formation and activation differences can be attributed to diverging organizational contexts varying in their reliance upon self-organizing versus command-and-control approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social networks are frequently cited as vital for facilitating successful adaptation and transformation in linked social--ecological systems to overcome pressing resource management challenges. Yet confusion remains over the precise nature of adaptation vs. transformation and the specific social network structures that facilitate these processes. Here, we adopt a network perspective to theorize a continuum of structural capacities in social--ecological systems that set the stage for effective adaptation and transformation. We begin by drawing on the resilience literature and the multilayered action situation to link processes of change in social--ecological systems to decision making across multiple layers of rules underpinning societal organization. We then present a framework that hypothesizes seven specific social--ecological network configurations that lay the structural foundation necessary for facilitating adaptation and transformation, given the type and magnitude of human action required. A key contribution of the framework is explicit consideration of how social networks relate to ecological structures and the particular environmental problem at hand. Of the seven configurations identified, three are linked to capacities conducive to adaptation and three to transformation, and one is hypothesized to be important for facilitating both processes. We discuss how our theoretical framework can be applied in practice by highlighting existing empirical examples from related environmental governance contexts. Further extension of our hypotheses, particularly as more data become available, can ultimately help guide the design of institutional arrangements to be more effective at dealing with change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increased likelihood and severity of coastal disasters in the 21st century represent major threats for coastal communities’ resource management capacity and livelihoods. Disaster research has frequently looked for singular factors explaining why some communities are more resilient and better equipped to cope with and recover from disasters. This study draws on Chile’s 2010 tsunami to evaluate the effects of both internal (social capital) and external (level of damage and isolation) factors on fishing communities’ recovery trajectories. Using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) we assess how the concurrency of conditions explains fisher organization responses. By operationalizing social capital as the social networks developed for co-management, we also evaluate whether social capital developed for natural resource management can help communities overcome post-disaster challenges. Results show that the level of linking social capital is critical in determining post-disaster trajectories. While maintained or increasing levels of social capital are indispensable for positive trajectories to occur, a common denominator for less desirable post-disaster recovery trajectories is a low or reduced level of social capital. However, external factors, such as the amount of damage and geographical isolation, are also important in determining recovery trajectories, indicating the limits of relying solely on social relations for recovery. These concurrent factors can amplify or reduce the importance of supportive relationships. Understanding the implications of complex interplay between social capital and external factors for community recovery in response to coastal disasters can inform the design of more effective and efficient responses and policies in Chile and more broadly. Furthermore, social capital developed for the purpose of co-management of natural resources can actually promote desirable post-disaster trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT With the ambition to contribute to the endeavour of co-management, this paper focuses on the critical aspect of legitimacy and sets out to explain stakeholder acceptance in natural resource governance. A comparative study of five coastal and marine areas in Sweden is conducted. The empirical results demonstrate, first, how the past and the present institutional landscape set the underlying conditions and affect stakeholders' acceptance of new co-management initiatives. Second, the results point to the critical function of network governance. Conscious choices regarding what composition of actors to involve, and in particular the inclusion and commitment of government actors, have significant bearing on stakeholder acceptance. Furthermore, deliberative efforts to reframe the process, adjusting the agenda to ongoing collaborative processes and key stakeholder goals, are seemingly as important. Thus, strivings towards legitimate co-management require skilful manoeuvring of the present institutional landscape as well as deliberate strategies for the evolution of social networks. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has identified the existence of social networks as a common and important denominator in cases where different stakeholders have come together to effectively deal with natural resource problems and dilemmas. It has even been shown that social networks can be more important than the existence of formal institutions for effective enforcement and compliance with environmental regulations. However, all social networks are not created equal. On the contrary, the structural pattern of relations (i.e. the topology) of a social network can have significant impact on how actors actually behave. This clearly has implications for actors’ abilities to manage environmental challenges. This review aims to add more precision to initial insights and pending hypotheses about the positive impacts of social networks on governance processes and outcomes, by reviewing and synthesizing empirically based literature explicitly studying structural characteristics of social networks in natural resource governance settings. It is shown that significant differences in governance processes and outcomes can be expected among networks experiencing structural differences in terms of density of relations, degree of cohesiveness, subgroup interconnectivity, and degree of network centralization. Furthermore, the review shows that none of these structural characteristics present a monotonically increasing positive effect on processes of importance for resource governance, and that favoring one characteristic likely occurs at the expense of another. Thus, assessing the most favorable level and mix of different network characteristics, where most of the positive governance effects are obtained while undesired effects are minimized, presents a key research and governance challenge. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: Social capital and leadership characteristics are important in resource management. We present a case study of a fishing community showing high levels of social capital quantified through social network analysis, but low willingness to report rule breaking. Furthermore, identified key individuals possess few links to financial institutions and important markets. These findings may, individually or in combination, explain the lack of common initiatives to deal with the overexploitation of fisheries. Alternative hypotheses are also discussed and include homogeneity among key individuals leading to poor recognition of the problem of changing ecological conditions, and the structural characteristics of their relational network, which reveal one person in a very influential position. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Biodiversity conservation is often limited by inadequate investments in monitoring and enforcement. However, monitoring and enforcement problems may be overcome by encouraging resource users to develop, endorse, and subsequently enforce conservation regulations. In this article, we draw upon the literature on common‐pool resources and social networks to assess the impacts of participation and network ties on the decisions of fishers to voluntarily report rule violations in two Jamaican marine reserves. Data was collected using questionnaires administered through personal interviews with fishers (n = 277). The results suggest that local fishers are more likely to report illegal fishing if they had participated in conservation planning and if they are directly linked to community‐based wardens in information sharing networks. This research extends well‐established findings regarding the role and impacts of participation on biodiversity conservation by highlighting the importance of synergies between participation and social networks for voluntary monitoring of conservation regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]