Abstract

Individuals may join groups for several reasons, one of which is the possibility of sharing information about the quality of a foraging area. Sharing information in a patch-foraging scenario gives each group member an opportunity to make a more accurate estimate of the quality of the patch. In this paper we present a mathematical model in which we study the effect of group size on patch-leaving policy and per capita intake rate. In the model, group members share information equally in a random search for food. Food is distributed in patches according to a negative binomial distribution. A prediction from our model is that, the larger the group, the earlier each group member should leave the current patch. We also find that the benefit from enhanced exchange of information does not exceed the cost of sharing food with group members. The per capita intake rate decreases as the group size increases. Therefore, animals should only form groups when other factors outweigh the costs, which is easiest to achieve when the travelling time is short.

Keywords

Bayesian forager; public information; marginal value theorem; stochastic dynamic programming

Published in

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
2003, Volume: 270, number: 1520, pages: 1137-1141
Publisher: ROYAL SOC

UKÄ Subject classification

Behavioral Sciences Biology


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2003.2352

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/89759