Information use and resource competition: an integrative framework

Abstract

Organisms may reduce uncertainty regarding how best to exploit their environment by collecting information about resource distribution. We develop a model to demonstrate how competition can facilitate or constrain an individual's ability to use information when acquiring resources. As resource distribution underpins both selection on information use and the strength and nature of competition between individuals, we demonstrate interdependencies between the two that should be common in nature. Individuals in our model can search for resources either personally or by using social information. We explore selection on social information use across a comprehensive range of ecological conditions, generalizing the producer-scrounger framework to a wide diversity of taxa and resources. We show that resource ecology--defined by scarcity, depletion rate and monopolizability--determines patterns of individual differences in social information use. These differences suggest coevolutionary processes linking dominance systems and social information use, with implications for the evolutionary demography of populations.

Keywords: decision-making; individual differences; information use; producer–scrounger dynamics; resource ecology; social dominance.

Figure 1.

The combined influence of resource scarcity and monopolizability on levels of scrounging in a group. Simultaneous resource discoveries occurred only within the shaded region (i.e. where λqN > 1). Values of c as follows: 0 (black circles), 1 (orange triangles), 10 (blue crosses), 100 (green diamonds). N = 16; a/F = 0.05.

Figure 2.

The combined effect of resource scarcity and monopolizability on the probability of scrounging for individuals of different social rank. Resource monopolizability for each panel as follows: (a) c = 0 (black), (b) c = 1 (orange), (c) c = 10 (blue) and (d) c = 100 (green). Colour coding corresponds to that given in figure 1. Note that social rank ranges highest to lowest from 1 to N. N = 16; a/F = 0.05.

Figure 3.

The effect of the finder's share on levels of scrounging in a group depends on interactions between resource scarcity and monopolizability. Panels show data for different values of per capita resource discovery rate (λ) as follows: (a) 0.01, (b) 0.3, (c) 0.5 and (d) 0.9. Values of c as follows: 0 (black circles), 1 (orange triangles), 10 (blue crosses), 100 (green diamonds). Simultaneous resource discoveries occurred only within the shaded regions (i.e. where λqN > 1). N = 16; a/F = 0.05.

Figure 4.

Resource scarcity and monopolizability interact to determine both the skew and strength of the fitness benefits of social rank. Resource monopolizability for each panel as follows: (a) c = 0 (black), (b) c = 1 (orange), (c) c = 10 (blue) and (d) c = 100 (green). Colour coding corresponds to that given in figure 1. Note that social rank ranges highest to lowest from 1 to N. N = 16; a/F = 0.05.

Figure 5.

Resource scarcity and monopolizability affects a group's average resource consumption rate through their influence on scrounging behaviour. Values of c as follows: 0 (black circles), 1 (orange triangles), 10 (blue crosses), 100 (green diamonds). N = 16; a/F = 0.05.