Individual differences in foraging decisions: information-gathering strategies or flexibility?

Arvidsson, Lisa; Matthysen, Erik

doi:10.1093/beheco/arw054

Cited by 25 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Our results thus support the information‐gathering hypothesis (IGS), where more exploratory individuals are expected to choose novel over known resources, because novel items in the environment harbor more uncertainty than previously sampled items (Foley & Marjoram, ; Inglis, Langton, Forkman, & Lazarus, ). In Arvidsson and Matthysen ()'s work, wild‐caught great tits ( Parus major ) were first provided with a binary choice between a profitable and non‐profitable feeder. The experimenters then added a novel non‐profitable feeder, thus giving the birds a choice between two familiar feeders and one feeder of uncertain profitability.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Under the BF hypothesis, less exploratory individuals are assumed to possess more accurate information about the familiar options and are therefore able to be more plastic (Arvidsson & Matthysen, ; Herborn et al, ). In contrast, our results suggest that faster explorers were more plastic as they removed fewer familiar pompoms (now unrewarding) before sampling the novel color option.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sampling refers to the investment of time and energy in the gathering and storing of information (Mathot et al, 2012). We test this hypothesis in the context of attraction to novelty, a context where Arvidsson and Matthysen (2016) found no support for the IGS hypothesis, as their experiment with great tits revealed no relationship between exploration score and novelty seeking. We predict that when given a choice between a familiar and a novel option, fast explorers should preferentially select the novel option, as this novel option has yet to be sampled and its value should be the most uncertain (i.e., there is more information to be gained by sampling new over familiar options).…”

mentioning

confidence: 91%

“…More work is needed to understand how exploratory behavior correlates with behavioral plasticity. Arvidsson and Matthysen (2016) described two hypotheses on the nature of the relationship between exploration, novelty seeking, and plasticity. In the "information-gathering strategy" hypothesis (IGS), exploratory tendency influences an individual's sampling behavior (Arvidsson & Matthysen, 2016).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Arvidsson and Matthysen (2016) described two hypotheses on the nature of the relationship between exploration, novelty seeking, and plasticity. In the "information-gathering strategy" hypothesis (IGS), exploratory tendency influences an individual's sampling behavior (Arvidsson & Matthysen, 2016). Sampling refers to the investment of time and energy in the gathering and storing of information (Mathot et al, 2012).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Is exploration a metric for information gathering? Attraction to novelty and plasticity in black‐capped chickadees

2019

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Animals can learn about the value of resources and predation risk by exploring novel environments or exploring novel stimuli in their regular environments. Still, there is a disconnect in the way that exploration has been defined and measured; exploration is defined in terms of information acquisition, while measured in terms of movement speed and diversity of contacted items in a novel environment. If exploration is indeed a measurement of information gathering, fast explorers should seek to reduce uncertainty about their environment more than slow explorers. Exploration speed has also been linked to behavioral plasticity, where fast explorers move fast but collect less detailed information, thereby forming routines and expressing less plasticity than slow explorers. We test these two hypotheses by comparing exploration in a novel environment to individuals' attraction to novelty and behavioral plasticity. Our results support the view that exploration is a measurement of information‐gathering tendencies as fast explorers were more likely to collect novel information, which should reduce uncertainty further than sampling familiar information sources, compared with slower explorers. Furthermore, faster explorers switched to sampling novel information more quickly than slow explorers when the value of the familiar option decreased, opposing the widely held view that faster explorers present more routine‐like behavior. By providing familiar and novel foraging options in close spatial contiguity, we demonstrate an attraction to novelty in faster explorers that cannot be confounded by activity rate, thereby suggesting that these individuals seek to reduce uncertainty. In conclusion, our results support the biological validity of the term “exploration” through its association with information gathering.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 91%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Is exploration a metric for information gathering? Attraction to novelty and plasticity in black‐capped chickadees

2019

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Early‐life diet composition affects phenotypic variation of correlated animal personality traits

Serrano Davies,

Miguel,

Sepers

et al. 2024

Ecology and Evolution

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Behavioural traits are under both genetic and environmental influence during early life stages. Early environmental conditions related to the amount and type of food have been found to alter behaviour in many organisms. However, how early life diet affects the variation in and the correlation between behavioural traits is largely unknown. Using a multivariate approach, we investigated how variation in parental prey selection is related to three repeatable nestling personality traits, and explored the within and between‐individual covariation between these behaviours in a wild passerine, the great tit (Parus major). Our results confirm that breath rate, docility and handling aggression (HA) in great tit nestlings are repeatable traits. Contrary to our expectation, the three nestling personality traits did not form a behavioural ‘syndrome’ on the phenotypic level in the study population, but we found two of three expected phenotypic correlations, mostly at the within‐individual level. Moreover, we found that breath rate significantly decreased with a higher number of spiders in the diet, and docility and handling aggression were significantly and inversely related to higher numbers of noctuids and tortricids in the diets of individuals within broods. Thus, our findings suggest that provisioning quantity and quality during the early life, affects variation in behavioural phenotypes, which occurs mainly at the within‐individual level.

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Hormone‐mediated foraging strategies in an uncertain environment: Insights into the at‐sea behavior of a marine predator

DeRango

Schwarz

Piedrahíta

et al. 2021

Ecology and Evolution

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Individual differences in foraging decisions: information-gathering strategies or flexibility?

Cited by 25 publications

References 58 publications

Is exploration a metric for information gathering? Attraction to novelty and plasticity in black‐capped chickadees

Is exploration a metric for information gathering? Attraction to novelty and plasticity in black‐capped chickadees

Early‐life diet composition affects phenotypic variation of correlated animal personality traits

Hormone‐mediated foraging strategies in an uncertain environment: Insights into the at‐sea behavior of a marine predator

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