Any mechanism that allows animals to increase their foraging efficiency is likely to be
selected for, including the ability to learn to recognise and subsequently discriminate …

Social animals can observe others' behavior and in the process acquire information of
varying quality about a given resource. Theoretical models predict that blind copying of …

Animals that forage in groups have access to social information concerning the quality and
location of food resources available. The degree to which individuals rely on social …

In foraging groups, individuals may utilise information from their social environment to aid
decision making when choosing where to search for food. Little work has looked at the costs …

Animals foraging on variable food sources can refine their estimates of patch quality by
monitoring the success of others (ie collect 'public information'). Here, we show that both …

Increasing substrate structural complexity has been linked to higher densities of various
refuge-seeking aquatic macroinvertebrates, many of which constitute major prey species in …

Although it is natural to expect that group-living animals will utilize social learning, the
expectation for non-grouping species is less clear. Only a few studies have explored the …

To forage efficiently in a patchy environment animals must make informed decisions
concerning in which patches to forage, for which the behaviour of other animals often …

Animals pay opportunity costs when pursuing one of several mutually exclusive courses of
action. We quantified the opportunity costs of conforming to the behaviour of others in …

The degree to which animals use public and private sources of information has important
implications for research in both evolutionary ecology and cultural evolution. While …