Influence of the Costs of Acquisition of Private and Social Information on Animal Dispersal

Habitat fragmentation is currently speeding up due to the impact of human activities. This leads to higher variations in habitat qualities for different species, influencing their behaviours. One key behaviour directly linked to species survival is dispersal (displacement from one habitat patch to another). In order to take successful dispersal decisions, animals rely on different sources of information. Private information is derived from the physical environment and is directly linked to its quality, whereas social information is derived from the behaviour of conspecifics. Few modelling studies include both information types and their associated acquisition costs in their modelling frameworks. We fill this gap by adding genetic factors influencing the evolution of information acquisition to an existing agent-based model. By varying total and relative acquisition costs for different environmental conditions and perceptual ranges, we show that dispersal strategies and information usage are heavily influenced by the type of environment and information acquisition costs. As the total cost of information rises, the use of information progressively disappears under all environmental conditions. In stable environments with a low cost of information, the acquisition of the cheapest type of information results in an increase in fitness. In environments where patch quality varies greatly, the type of information used also depends on the perceptual range of the agents: agents with a restricted perceptual range often select both types of information while, agents with a larger perceptual range almost exclusively use private information.