Incorporating genomic methods into contact networks to reveal new insights into animal behavior and infectious disease dynamics

Utilization of contact networks has provided opportunities for assessing the dynamic interplay between pathogen transmission and host behavior. Genomic techniques have, in their own right, provided new insight into complex questions in disease ecology, and the increasing accessibility of genomic approaches means more researchers may seek out these tools. The integration of network and genomic approaches provides opportunities to examine the interaction between behavior and pathogen transmission in new ways and with greater resolution. While a number of studies have begun to incorporate both contact network and genomic approaches, a great deal of work has yet to be done to better integrate these techniques. In this review, we give a broad overview of how network and genomic approaches have each been used to address questions regarding the interaction of social behavior and infectious disease, and then discuss current work and future horizons for the merging of these techniques.