Adaptive collective foraging in groups with conflicting nutritional needs

Alistair M. Senior (1) , Mathieu Lihoreau (2) , Michael Charleston (1) , Jerome Buhl , David Raubenheimer (1) , Stephen J. Simpson (1)

1 The University of Sydney
2 CRCA - Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale - UMR5169

Collective foraging, based on positive feedback and quorum responses, is believed to improve the foraging efficiency of animals. Nutritional models suggest that social information transfer increases the ability of foragers with closely aligned nutritional needs to find nutrients and maintain a balanced diet. However, whether or not collective foraging is adaptive in a heterogeneous group composed of individuals with differing nutritional needs is virtually unexplored. Here we develop an evolutionary agent-based model using concepts of nutritional ecology to address this knowledge gap. Our aim was to evaluate how collective foraging, mediated by social retention on foods, can improve nutrient balancing in individuals with different requirements. The model suggests that in groups where inter-individual nutritional needs are unimodally distributed, high levels of collective foraging yield optimal individual fitness by reducing search times that result from moving between nutritionally imbalanced foods.

Mots clés: collective decisions; nutritional geometry; sociality; social interactions; foraging; individual-based model

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]; Biologie animale; Alimentation et Nutrition; Ecologie, Environnement

Alistair M. Senior, Mathieu Lihoreau, Michael Charleston, Jerome Buhl, David Raubenheimer, et al.. Adaptive collective foraging in groups with conflicting nutritional needs. Royal Society Open Science, 2016, 3 (4), pp.150638. ⟨10.1098/rsos.150638⟩. ⟨hal-02105111⟩