Copy-when-uncertain: bumblebees rely on social information when rewards are highly variable
Copy-when-uncertain: bumblebees rely on social information when rewards are highly variable
复制标题
不确定时复制：当奖励变化很大时，大黄蜂依赖社交信息
作者：
M. Smolla;S. Alem;L. Chittka;S. Shultz
为了理解在觅食决策中使用社会信息和个人信息的相对好处，我们开发了一个基于代理的社会学习模型，该模型预测，在资源高度可变的情况下，社会信息应该更具适应性，而在资源变化不大的情况下，个人信息应该更具适应性。我们用大黄蜂测试了我们的预测，发现当资源变化时，觅食者比不变化时更依赖社会信息。然后，我们调查了在不同的环境中，社会显著性线索是否比非社会显著性线索更被优先使用。虽然蜜蜂在高度变化的环境中明显使用社会线索，但在相同的条件下，它们不会使用非社会线索。这些结果表明，大黄蜂使用一种“不确定时复制”的策略。
To understand the relative benefits of social and personal information use in foraging decisions, we developed an agent-based model of social learning that predicts social information should be more adaptive where resources are highly variable and personal information where resources vary little. We tested our predictions with bumblebees and found that foragers relied more on social information when resources were variable than when they were not. We then investigated whether socially salient cues are used preferentially over non-social ones in variable environments. Although bees clearly used social cues in highly variable environments, under the same conditions they did not use non-social cues. These results suggest that bumblebees use a ‘copy-when-uncertain’ strategy.