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Consequences of multiple simultaneous opportunities to exploit others’ efforts on free riding

Individuals within a group do not all act in the same way: Typically, the investors (or producers) put efforts into producing resources while the free riders (or scroungers) benefit from these resources without contributing. In behavioral ecology, the prevalence of free riders can be predicted by a...

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Autores principales: Dubois, Frédérique, Richard‐Dionne, Étienne
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7246214/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32489601
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6201
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author Dubois, Frédérique
Richard‐Dionne, Étienne
author_facet Dubois, Frédérique
Richard‐Dionne, Étienne
author_sort Dubois, Frédérique
collection PubMed
description Individuals within a group do not all act in the same way: Typically, the investors (or producers) put efforts into producing resources while the free riders (or scroungers) benefit from these resources without contributing. In behavioral ecology, the prevalence of free riders can be predicted by a well‐known game‐theoretical model—the producer–scrounger (PS) model—where group members have the options to either search for resources (producers) or exploit the efforts of others (scroungers). The PS model has received some empirical support, but its predictions, surprisingly, are based on the strict assumption that only one resource can be exploited at a time. Yet, multiple simultaneous opportunities to exploit others’ efforts should frequently occur in nature. Here, we combine analytic and simulation approaches to explore the effect of multiple simultaneous scrounging opportunities on tactic use. Our analyses demonstrate that scrounging rates should increase with the number of simultaneous opportunities. As such, the amount and spatial distribution (i.e., clumped vs. dispersed) of resources as well as the risk of predation are key predictors of scrounging behavior. Because scroungers contribute to reducing the speed of resource exploitation, the model proposed here has direct relevance to the exploitation and sustainability of renewable resources.
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spelling pubmed-72462142020-06-01 Consequences of multiple simultaneous opportunities to exploit others’ efforts on free riding Dubois, Frédérique Richard‐Dionne, Étienne Ecol Evol Original Research Individuals within a group do not all act in the same way: Typically, the investors (or producers) put efforts into producing resources while the free riders (or scroungers) benefit from these resources without contributing. In behavioral ecology, the prevalence of free riders can be predicted by a well‐known game‐theoretical model—the producer–scrounger (PS) model—where group members have the options to either search for resources (producers) or exploit the efforts of others (scroungers). The PS model has received some empirical support, but its predictions, surprisingly, are based on the strict assumption that only one resource can be exploited at a time. Yet, multiple simultaneous opportunities to exploit others’ efforts should frequently occur in nature. Here, we combine analytic and simulation approaches to explore the effect of multiple simultaneous scrounging opportunities on tactic use. Our analyses demonstrate that scrounging rates should increase with the number of simultaneous opportunities. As such, the amount and spatial distribution (i.e., clumped vs. dispersed) of resources as well as the risk of predation are key predictors of scrounging behavior. Because scroungers contribute to reducing the speed of resource exploitation, the model proposed here has direct relevance to the exploitation and sustainability of renewable resources. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2020-04-16 /pmc/articles/PMC7246214/ /pubmed/32489601 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6201 Text en © 2020 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Research
Dubois, Frédérique
Richard‐Dionne, Étienne
Consequences of multiple simultaneous opportunities to exploit others’ efforts on free riding
title Consequences of multiple simultaneous opportunities to exploit others’ efforts on free riding
title_full Consequences of multiple simultaneous opportunities to exploit others’ efforts on free riding
title_fullStr Consequences of multiple simultaneous opportunities to exploit others’ efforts on free riding
title_full_unstemmed Consequences of multiple simultaneous opportunities to exploit others’ efforts on free riding
title_short Consequences of multiple simultaneous opportunities to exploit others’ efforts on free riding
title_sort consequences of multiple simultaneous opportunities to exploit others’ efforts on free riding
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7246214/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32489601
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6201
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