Introduction

Dominance and hierarchy is one of the core concepts in the research field of animal social behaviour. The hierarchy (dominance) can be derived from the interactions between the individuals (dyadic relationships). There are numerous techniques to derive the dominance from such dataset. We can classify them into two categories; numerical matrix optimization for certain criteria which results in a rank order (1) and calculation of a certain dominance measure for each individual from which a rank can be computed (2).

The HierarchiaPy statistical python package aims to implement available methods from both categories, allowing the animal social scientists to derive dominance efficiently, easily and in a reproducible way.

Note

Categories of the methods are given next to the method’s name in the parenthesis

Methods

  1. Elo Rating (2)

  2. Randomized ELO rating (2)

  3. David’s Scores (2)

  4. Normalized David’s Scores (2)

  5. Average Dominance Index (2)

  6. Adagio (1)

  7. I&SI 98 (1)

Dominance Metrics

  1. Directional Consistency Index (DCI)

  2. Steepness Measure

  3. Steepness Test

  4. Landau’s h

  5. Improved Landau’s h (h’)

  6. Kendall K (Chi square > 10 and ECDF <= 10)

Utilities

  1. Dij Matrix

  2. Planar Network Visualization

Under Active Development

  1. I&SI 13