Abstract
Recent findings indicate that the utilization of social information, produced inadvertently by other individuals through their spatial location and/or interaction with the environment, may be ubiquitous in the animal kingdom. If so, social information-mediated effects on population growth and interspecies interactions may be more prevalent than previously thought. However, little is known about how social information may spread among non-grouping individuals, i.e., in animals that do not form cohesive groups and therefore social attraction among group-mates does not facilitate information diffusion. Are there any perception-related, temporal, and/or spatial parameters that may facilitate or limit the spread of social information in temporary aggregations or among dispersed individuals in a population? We argue that living in cohesive groups is not necessarily required for the diffusion of social information and for social information-mediated effects to emerge in a population. We propose that while learning complex problem-solving techniques socially is less likely to occur in non-grouping animals, the spread of adaptive responses to social stimuli, especially to non-visual cues, can be common and may affect population, and/or community dynamics in a wide range of taxa. We also argue that network-based diffusion analysis could be a suitable analytical method for studying information diffusion in future investigations, providing comparable estimations of social effects on information spread to previous studies on group-living animals. We conclude that more studies are warranted to verify what intrinsic and extrinsic factors influence information propagation among incidentally and/or indirectly interacting individuals if we are to better understand the role of social information in animal populations and how the social and ecological characteristics of species are related to information spread in natural communities.
Highlights
CRITERIA FOR THE DIFFUSION OF SOCIAL INFORMATIONWhen social information spreads among individuals, social cues generate behavioral responses beyond their original detection range, as preceding observers become potential demonstrators themselves
Reviewed by: Teri Jones, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom Ari Martinez, California State University Long Beach, United States
We argue that network-based diffusion analysis could be a suitable analytical method for studying information diffusion in future investigations, providing comparable estimations of social effects on information spread to previous studies on group-living animals
Summary
When social information spreads among individuals, social cues generate behavioral responses beyond their original detection range, as preceding observers become potential demonstrators themselves. A second animal may detect this behavioral response, and adjusts its own behavior This social cue, in turn, may elicit a similar behavioral response in a third individual (and so on), so the information about predation threat may spread further away from the location of the predator as long as there are demonstrators within the perception range of potential observers. This phenomenon can occur irrespective of the presence of social attraction between individuals. Cues associated with the routine behavior of other individuals can commonly elicit similar responses in naïve observers and may diffuse among multiple individuals in non-grouping animals as well
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