Motivational mechanisms of optimal foraging: A novel theory and critical tests with pigeons in a semi-natural foraging environment

在环境中，动物暴露于既不丰富也不均匀分布的食物资源中。种内和种间竞争加剧了这一现象。自然选择形成了最优觅食策略，使生物体能够减少食物的不可预测性，但支撑最优觅食的心理机制却鲜为人知。本项目试图揭示在食物不安全条件下半自然觅食环境中鸽子的最佳觅食动机机制。鸽子将被用作动物模型，因为大量的文献致力于研究这些鸟类的不确定性处理，而与此同时，鸽子的觅食策略还没有被深入研究，相对于其他鸟类，如小型雀形目动物。鸽子的饥饿风险较低，因为它们比大多数雀形目鸟类都大，这可能会影响它们的觅食策略。环境将主要包括一个穿孔的觅食平台和在电脑屏幕上真实显示的竞争对手。与食物不可预测性下动物觅食研究相关的行为理论的主要预测将被测试和对比。首先，这里提出的实验结果可以提供有关环境条件下粮食不安全影响的信息，比传统上使用的更现实。其次，它们可能对理解所有脊椎动物类别中奖励相关行为的不变动机和行为机制具有重要的理论意义。

In the environment, animals are exposed to food resources that are neither abundant nor homogeneously distributed. Intra- and inter-specific competition contributes to magnify this phenomenon. Natural selection shaped optimal foraging strategies that allow organisms to reduce food unpredictability, but the psychological mechanisms that underpin optimal foraging are poorly understood. This project tries to uncover the motivational mechanisms of optimal foraging as tested with pigeons in a semi-natural foraging environment under conditions of food insecurity. Pigeons will be used as an animal model because a vast literature is devoted to the study of uncertainty processing in these birds, while at the same time foraging strategies have not deeply been studied in pigeons relative to other bird species, such as small passerines. Pigeons have a lower risk of starvation because they are larger birds than most passerines, and this may have an impact on their foraging strategies. The environment will basically consist of a foraging platform perforated with holes and a realistic display of competitors on a computer screen. Major predictions of behavioral theories relevant to the study of animal foraging under food unpredictability will be tested and contrasted. First, the results of the experiments presented here could provide information about the effects of food insecurity in environmental conditions more realistic than those traditionally used. Second, they could have important theoretical implications for the understanding of the invariant motivational and behavioral mechanisms of reward-associated behaviors across all vertebrate classes.