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Uncertainty drives deviations in normative foraging decision strategies
Nearly all animals forage to acquire energy for survival through efficient search and resource harvesting. Patch exploitation is a canonical foraging behaviour, but there is a need for more tractable and understandable mathematical models describing how foragers deal with uncertainty. To provide suc...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Royal Society
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8277480/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34255987 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2021.0337 |
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author | Kilpatrick, Zachary P. Davidson, Jacob D. El Hady, Ahmed |
author_facet | Kilpatrick, Zachary P. Davidson, Jacob D. El Hady, Ahmed |
author_sort | Kilpatrick, Zachary P. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Nearly all animals forage to acquire energy for survival through efficient search and resource harvesting. Patch exploitation is a canonical foraging behaviour, but there is a need for more tractable and understandable mathematical models describing how foragers deal with uncertainty. To provide such a treatment, we develop a normative theory of patch foraging decisions, proposing mechanisms by which foraging behaviours emerge in the face of uncertainty. Our model foragers statistically and sequentially infer patch resource yields using Bayesian updating based on their resource encounter history. A decision to leave a patch is triggered when the certainty of the patch type or the estimated yield of the patch falls below a threshold. The time scale over which uncertainty in resource availability persists strongly impacts behavioural variables like patch residence times and decision rules determining patch departures. When patch depletion is slow, as in habitat selection, departures are characterized by a reduction of uncertainty, suggesting that the forager resides in a low-yielding patch. Uncertainty leads patch-exploiting foragers to overharvest (underharvest) patches with initially low (high) resource yields in comparison with predictions of the marginal value theorem. These results extend optimal foraging theory and motivate a variety of behavioural experiments investigating patch foraging behaviour. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8277480 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | The Royal Society |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-82774802021-07-20 Uncertainty drives deviations in normative foraging decision strategies Kilpatrick, Zachary P. Davidson, Jacob D. El Hady, Ahmed J R Soc Interface Life Sciences–Mathematics interface Nearly all animals forage to acquire energy for survival through efficient search and resource harvesting. Patch exploitation is a canonical foraging behaviour, but there is a need for more tractable and understandable mathematical models describing how foragers deal with uncertainty. To provide such a treatment, we develop a normative theory of patch foraging decisions, proposing mechanisms by which foraging behaviours emerge in the face of uncertainty. Our model foragers statistically and sequentially infer patch resource yields using Bayesian updating based on their resource encounter history. A decision to leave a patch is triggered when the certainty of the patch type or the estimated yield of the patch falls below a threshold. The time scale over which uncertainty in resource availability persists strongly impacts behavioural variables like patch residence times and decision rules determining patch departures. When patch depletion is slow, as in habitat selection, departures are characterized by a reduction of uncertainty, suggesting that the forager resides in a low-yielding patch. Uncertainty leads patch-exploiting foragers to overharvest (underharvest) patches with initially low (high) resource yields in comparison with predictions of the marginal value theorem. These results extend optimal foraging theory and motivate a variety of behavioural experiments investigating patch foraging behaviour. The Royal Society 2021-07-14 /pmc/articles/PMC8277480/ /pubmed/34255987 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2021.0337 Text en © 2021 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Life Sciences–Mathematics interface Kilpatrick, Zachary P. Davidson, Jacob D. El Hady, Ahmed Uncertainty drives deviations in normative foraging decision strategies |
title | Uncertainty drives deviations in normative foraging decision strategies |
title_full | Uncertainty drives deviations in normative foraging decision strategies |
title_fullStr | Uncertainty drives deviations in normative foraging decision strategies |
title_full_unstemmed | Uncertainty drives deviations in normative foraging decision strategies |
title_short | Uncertainty drives deviations in normative foraging decision strategies |
title_sort | uncertainty drives deviations in normative foraging decision strategies |
topic | Life Sciences–Mathematics interface |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8277480/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34255987 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2021.0337 |
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