Social Information Use

Abstract

Animals collect information about when to flee, where to feed, or where and with whom to breed. They can gather this information by sampling the environment (personal information), or by observing the behavior of others (inadvertent social information), or attending to signals made by others (communication). This article focuses on inadvertent social information. Models predict that animals will use inadvertent social information when the costs of gathering personal information are high, and when reliable social cues are readily available. In line with these predictions, migrants copy the breeding habitat choice of resident species, unsuccessful foragers copy successful foragers’ patch choices, and young females copy the mate choice of more experienced conspecifics. Social information use can have positive, neutral, or negative effects on individuals producing information, and these fitness consequences can, in turn, select for true communication or concealment.