Social information use and collective foraging in a pursuit diving seabird.

ABSTRACT: Individuals of many species utilise social information whilst making decisions. While many studies have examined social information in making large scale decisions, there is increasing interest in the use of fine scale social cues in groups. By examining the use of these cues and how they alter behaviour, we can gain insights into the adaptive value of group behaviours. We investigated the role of social information in choosing when and where to dive in groups of socially foraging European shags. From this we aimed to determine the importance of social information in the formation of these groups. We extracted individuals' surface trajectories and dive locations from video footage of collective foraging and used computational Bayesian methods to infer how social interactions influence divi

SUBMITTER: Evans JC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6756525 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature