RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Causal evidence for the adaptive benefits of social foraging in the wild
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.08.17.254250
DO 10.1101/2020.08.17.254250
A1 Lysanne Snijders
A1 Stefan Krause
A1 Alan N. Tump
A1 Michael Breuker
A1 Chente Ortiz
A1 Sofia Rizzi
A1 Indar W. Ramnarine
A1 Jens Krause
A1 Ralf H.J.M. Kurvers
YR 2020
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/08/18/2020.08.17.254250.abstract
AB Sociality is a fundamental organizing principle across taxa, thought to come with a suite of adaptive benefits. However, making causal inferences about these adaptive benefits requires experimental manipulation of the social environment, which is rarely feasible in the field. Here we manipulated the number of conspecifics in Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata) in the wild, and quantified how this affected a key benefit of sociality, social foraging, by investigating several components of foraging success. As adaptive benefits of social foraging may differ between sexes, we studied males and females separately, expecting females, the more social and risk-averse sex, to benefit more from conspecifics than males. Conducting over 1,600 foraging trials, we found that in both sexes, increasing the number of conspecifics led to faster detection of novel food patches and a higher probability of feeding following detection of the patch, resulting in greater individual resource consumption. The slope of the latter relationship differed between the sexes, with males unexpectedly exhibiting a stronger social benefit. Our study provides rare causal evidence for the adaptive benefits of social foraging in the wild, and highlights that sex differences in sociality do not necessarily imply an unequal ability to profit from the presence of others.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.