Caenorhabditis elegans foraging patterns follow a simple rule of thumb.

ABSTRACT: Rules of thumb are behavioral algorithms that approximate optimal behavior while lowering cognitive and sensory costs. One way to reduce these costs is by simplifying the representation of the environment: While the theoretically optimal behavior may depend on many environmental variables, a rule of thumb may use a smaller set of variables that performs reasonably well. Experimental proof of this simplification requires an exhaustive mapping of all relevant combinations of several environmental parameters, which we performed for Caenorhabditis elegans foraging by covering systematically combinations of food density (across 4 orders of magnitude) and food type (across 12 bacterial strains). We found that worms' response is dominated by a single environmental variable: food density measured

SUBMITTER: Madirolas G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10425387 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature