Hunger and knowledge: foraging decisions in an uncertain and social world

饥饿与知识：在不确定的社交世界中寻找决策

• 批准号: NE/P012639/1
• 负责人: Christos Ioannou
• 金额: $ 45.23万
• 依托单位: University of Bristol
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2018 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FP012639%2F1
• 关键词: Hunger; knowledge; foraging; decisions; uncertain

Even within seemingly homogeneous habitats there is a great deal of small-scale heterogeneity over time and space. Thus, as animals explore their environment, there is variation between individuals in encountering food, resulting in population-level individual differences in hunger and knowledge. This variation is often further magnified by intrinsic consistent differences in behaviour between individuals (frequently referred to as animal 'personality'), which can be driven by differences in genetics and development that are stable in adulthood. How individuals manage the balance between feeding and avoiding predation risk when they have limited information is a long-running question in understanding animal behaviour. The story becomes much more complicated when we consider that many animals, especially those that are prey to others, live in groups. Living together has benefits in avoiding predators and locating resources, in part because animals can share information and socially learn from one another; on the other hand, coordinating when and where to do particular behaviours becomes a new problem. When and how information is gained and socially transmitted, and how hunger affects decisions and social behaviour, have been studied extensively but separately from one another. In this project, for the first time we will bring these elements together to understand how hunger and information interact when animals make foraging decisions both individually and collectively.Our study will utilise the recent explosion of interest in decision making by animal groups across taxa and advances in state-of-the-art animal tracking computer vision software. We will address a range of unanswered questions regarding hunger and information in decision making: What are the relative contributions of, and interactions between, hunger and risk taking tendency in the acquisition of information? How do interactions between individuals within groups influence these processes and what is the consequence for how knowledge and food are distributed between individuals? What is the effect of mixing informed and naïve, and hungry and sated, individuals in a group, e.g. do naïve individuals follow and learn better from satiated rather than hungry informed individuals that are likely to leave them behind? Can leadership emerge from differences in hunger that are driven by social interactions? Can more effective foraging in groups be best explained by sharing of information or simply by the extra motivation of having a partner? The project has the potential to greatly increase our understanding of decision making and the factors important in individual variation in social animals. The experimental work will use small freshwater fish as a model system. Compared to studying more complex animals such as birds or primates, there are a number of advantages to studying fish. Information and hunger can be easily controlled, and the species to be used (three-spined sticklebacks and guppies) have 'fission-fusion' social systems where individuals change group membership often, allowing us to easily manipulate group composition. As decisions and information exchange are evident in changes in speed and direction in most fish species, state-of-the-art computer vision software that tracks each individual's position over time will be used to quantify individual decisions objectively. Moreover, fish show many of the cognitive abilities found in 'smarter' vertebrates, suggesting that our results may be applicable to other animals, even humans. In parallel with the behavioural experiments, we will create new models of animal groups that consider how decision-making occurs when individuals are able to learn about their environment. Developing the models alongside the experimental work will maximise our ability to fully understand the complex interactions expected in the real animals.

即使在看似同质的生境中，也存在着大量小规模的时间和空间异质性。因此，当动物探索它们的环境时，个体之间在遇到食物时会发生变化，导致群体水平上饥饿和知识的个体差异。这种差异往往被个体之间内在一致的行为差异（通常被称为动物“个性”）进一步放大，这可能是由成年后稳定的遗传和发育差异驱动的。在信息有限的情况下，个体如何管理进食和避免捕食风险之间的平衡是理解动物行为的一个长期问题。当我们考虑到许多动物，特别是那些被其他动物捕食的动物，生活在群体中时，这个故事变得更加复杂。生活在一起有利于避免捕食者和定位资源，部分原因是动物可以分享信息并相互学习;另一方面，协调何时何地进行特定行为成为一个新问题。信息何时以及如何获得和社会传播，以及饥饿如何影响决策和社会行为，已得到广泛研究，但彼此独立。在这个项目中，我们将首次将这些元素结合在一起，以了解饥饿和信息如何相互作用，当动物做出觅食决定时，无论是单独还是集体。我们的研究将利用最近对动物群体决策的兴趣激增，以及最先进的动物跟踪计算机视觉软件的进步。我们将解决一系列关于饥饿和决策信息的未回答的问题：在获取信息方面，饥饿和冒险倾向的相对贡献和相互作用是什么？群体中个体之间的相互作用如何影响这些过程，以及知识和食物如何在个体之间分配的后果是什么？在一个群体中，混合知情和天真、饥饿和满足的个体会产生什么样的影响，例如，天真的个体会更好地跟随和学习满足的个体，而不是饥饿的知情个体，后者可能会把他们抛在后面？领导力能从社会互动驱动的饥饿差异中产生吗？更有效的群体觅食是否可以通过分享信息或仅仅通过拥有伙伴的额外动机来最好地解释？该项目有可能大大增加我们对决策的理解，以及社会动物个体差异的重要因素。实验工作将使用小型淡水鱼作为模型系统。与研究鸟类或灵长类等更复杂的动物相比，研究鱼类有许多优势。信息和饥饿可以很容易地控制，并且所使用的物种（三刺鱼和孔雀鱼）具有“裂变-融合”的社会系统，其中个体经常改变群体成员身份，使我们能够轻松地操纵群体组成。由于大多数鱼类物种的速度和方向的变化都明显反映了决策和信息交换，因此将使用最先进的计算机视觉软件来跟踪每个人随时间的位置，以客观地量化个人决策。此外，鱼类表现出许多在“更聪明”的脊椎动物中发现的认知能力，这表明我们的研究结果可能适用于其他动物，甚至人类。在行为实验的同时，我们将创建动物群体的新模型，考虑当个体能够了解他们的环境时，决策是如何发生的。在实验工作的同时开发模型将最大限度地提高我们充分理解真实的动物中预期的复杂相互作用的能力。

项目成果

Supplementary Results, Tables and Figures from Regulation between personality traits: individual social tendencies modulate whether boldness and leadership are correlated

人格特质之间调节的补充结果、表格和数字：个人社会倾向调节大胆和领导力是否相关

• DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.6392567
• 发表时间: 2018
• 作者: Bevan P

Effects of multiple stressors on fish shoal collective motion are independent and vary with shoaling metric

• DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2020.07.024
• 发表时间: 2020-10-01
• 期刊: ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR
• 影响因子: 2.5
• 作者: Ginnaw, Georgina M.;Davidson, Isla K.;Ioannou, Christos C.
• 通讯作者: Ioannou, Christos C.

Turbidity increases risk perception but constrains collective behaviour during foraging by fish shoals

• DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2019.08.012
• 发表时间: 2019-10-01
• 期刊: ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR
• 影响因子: 2.5
• 作者: Chamberlain, Alice C.;Ioannou, Christos C.
• 通讯作者: Ioannou, Christos C.

Black-headed gulls synchronise their activity with their nearest neighbours.

• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-28378-x
• 发表时间: 2018-07-02
• 期刊: Scientific reports
• 影响因子: 4.6
• 作者: Evans MHR;Lihou KL;Rands SA
• 通讯作者: Rands SA

Regulation between personality traits: individual social tendencies modulate whether boldness and leadership are correlated.

• DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2018.0829
• 发表时间: 2018-06-13
• 期刊: Proceedings. Biological sciences
• 作者: Bevan PA;Gosetto I;Jenkins ER;Barnes I;Ioannou CC
• 通讯作者: Ioannou CC