Differential patch-leaving behavior during probabilistic foraging in humans and gerbils.

ABSTRACT: Foraging confronts animals, including humans, with the need to balance exploration and exploitation: exploiting a resource until it depletes and then deciding when to move to a new location for more resources. Research across various species has identified rules for when to leave a depleting patch, influenced by environmental factors like patch quality. Here we compare human and gerbil patch-leaving behavior through two analogous tasks: a visual search for humans and a physical foraging task for gerbils, both involving patches with randomly varying initial rewards that decreased exponentially. Patch-leaving decisions of humans but not gerbils follow an incremental mechanism based on reward encounters that is considered optimal for maximizing reward yields in variable foraging environments.

SUBMITTER: Guldener L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11327252 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature