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other individuals familiar from earlier in life when foraging, but select for partners that are 38 unfamiliar during mate choice. We found no effect of either personality or dominance on 39 foraging associations or mate choice. Our study shows how using social network analysis can 40 increase our understanding of the drivers behind population structure (in our case kin 41 selection and inbreeding avoidance). Moreover, our study demonstrates that social networks 42 can be largely determined by long-term processes, in particular early-life familiarity. Flack et al. 2006; Lusseau et al. 2011; Hirsch et al. 2012; Madden et al. 2012 based on earlier findings in this species (Choudhury & Black 1994; Black & Owen 1995). 90 We had no a priori expectations in respect of dominance or boldness (Schuett et al. 2010). and Sons, 't Zand, the Netherlands) and after the experiments geese were returned to the 115 breeding farm. were circa two years of age. Two weeks before, the geese were separated into two single-sex 120 flocks, allowing the study of sex-specific factors that may contribute to association 121 preferences while avoiding any confounding inter-sexual interactions. We thus performed our 122 observations on one group consisting of all males, and one group consisting of all females. were seen together out of the total number of times those individuals were observed, thereby 141 controlling for inter-individual differences in the total number of sightings. SRI tends to be a and males similarly from 1 to 23. From these ranks, we derived a dominance distance matrix, RESULTS 274 Genetic relatedness 275 The average pairwise relatedness among all of the dyads was 0.035 ± 0.094 SD (range: 0 - females having relatively few strong and many weak connections 286 Female geese associated significantly more with individuals from the same familiarity group 287 (MRMPA: P < 0.0001, 292 Average SRI within the male group was 0.034 ± 0.057 SD (range 0 -0.50), with most 293 individuals again having relatively few strong association