Foraging and Flocking Strategies: Information in an Uncertain Environment

Clark, Colin; Mangel, Marc

doi:10.1086/284228

Cited by 376 publications

(242 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…The results of the present study conflict with both empirical work and theoretical models that have assumed that foragers weight personal and social information equally (Clark & Mangel 1984;Valone 1989;Valone & Giraldeau 1993;Templeton & Giraldeau 1996). To our knowledge, Day et al (2004) and the present study are the first to test this assumption empirically, and neither find evidence to support it.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Nine-spined sticklebacks exploit the most reliable source when public and private information conflict

Bergen

Coolen

Laland

2004

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

234

186

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Social foragers can potentially use private information gained from personal experience and public information gained from observing the foraging success of others to determine the profitability of a foraging patch. We investigated how nine-spined sticklebacks use conflicting public and private information of variable reliability to make foraging decisions. In a first experiment, when private information was reliable, sticklebacks ignored public information and based their foraging decision on private information. However, when private information was less reliable, sticklebacks tended to use public rather than private information. A second experiment investigated how the time since experiencing private information affected sticklebacks' use of this information when it conflicted with recent public information. Fish based their foraging decisions on recently acquired private information, but reliance on private information diminished as the period since experiencing it increased. Fish used public information if 7 days had elapsed since updating their private information. Our findings suggest that nine-spined sticklebacks flexibly adjust their decision making to exploit the most reliable information available, be it public or private, and that animals will weight private and public information appropriately depending on circumstances.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Nine-spined sticklebacks exploit the most reliable source when public and private information conflict

Bergen

Coolen

Laland

2004

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

234

186

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“…Thus, one advantage that social individuals have over solitary animals is that individuals in groups can acquire information faster, more reliably and at lower cost (Clark & Mangel 1984Giraldeau et al 1994;Giraldeau 1997;Galef & Giraldeau 2001). For instance, individuals in groups, much like solitary animals, may learn skills by trial and error.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential disadvantages of using socially acquired information

Giraldeau

Valone

Templeton

2002

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B

495

439

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The acquisition and use of socially acquired information is commonly assumed to be profitable. We challenge this assumption by exploring hypothetical scenarios where the use of such information either provides no benefit or can actually be costly. First, we show that the level of incompatibility between the acquisition of personal and socially acquired information will directly affect the extent to which the use of socially acquired information can be profitable. When these two sources of information cannot be acquired simultaneously, there may be no benefit to socially acquired information. Second, we assume that a solitary individual's behavioural decisions will be based on cues revealed by its own interactions with the environment. However, in many cases, for social animals the only socially acquired information available to individuals is the behavioural actions of others that expose their decisions, rather than the cues on which these decisions were based. We argue that in such a situation the use of socially acquired information can lead to informational cascades that sometimes result in sub-optimal behaviour. From this theory of informational cascades, we predict that when erroneous cascades are costly, individuals should pay attention only to socially generated cues and not behavioural decisions. We suggest three scenarios that might be examples of informational cascades in nature.

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“…On one hand, the social setting may change the foraging priorities of the forager, for example, by modifying the maximized currency either towards or away from energy rate maximization (e.g. Caraco 1981;Clark & Mangel 1984;Ydenberg et al 1986;Koops & Giraldeau 1996;Giraldeau & Caraco 1999). On the other, the presence of other foragers may change the availability or distribution of foraging opportunities, so that even though the same energetic currency is maximized, observed behaviour is di¡erent (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foraging rate versus sociality in the starlingSturnus vulgaris

Vásquez

Kacelnik

2000

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

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It is well established that social conditions often modify foraging behaviour, but the theoretical interpretation of the changes produced is not straightforward. Changes may be due to alterations of the foraging currency (the mathematical expression that behaviour maximizes) and/or of the available resources. An example of the latter is when both solitary and social foragers maximize rates of gain over time, but competition alters the behaviour required to achieve this, as assumed by ideal free distribution models. Here we examine this problem using captive starlings Sturnus vulgaris. Subjects had access to two depleting patches that replenished whenever the alternative patch was visited. The theoretical ratemaximizing policy was the same across all treatments, and consisted of alternating between patches following a pattern that could be predicted using the marginal value theorem (MVT). There were three treatments that di¡ered in the contents of an aviary adjacent to one of the two patches (called the`social' patch). In the control treatment, the aviary was empty, in the social condition it contained a group of starlings, and in a non-speci¢c stimulus control it contained a group of zebra ¢nches. In the control condition both patches were used equally and behaviour was well predicted by the MVT. In the social condition, starlings foraged more slowly in the social than in the solitary patch. Further, foraging in the solitary patch was faster and in the social patch slower in the social condition than in the control condition. Although these changes are incompatible with overall rate maximization (gain rate decreased by about 24% by self-imposed changes), if the self-generated gain functions were used the MVT was a good predictor of patch exploitation under all conditions. We discuss the complexities of nesting optimal foraging models in more comprehensive theoretical accounts of behaviour integrating functional and mechanistic perspectives.

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Foraging and Flocking Strategies: Information in an Uncertain Environment

Cited by 376 publications

References 16 publications

Nine-spined sticklebacks exploit the most reliable source when public and private information conflict

Nine-spined sticklebacks exploit the most reliable source when public and private information conflict

Potential disadvantages of using socially acquired information

Foraging rate versus sociality in the starlingSturnus vulgaris

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