Abstract
Abstract While larger groups tend to be better at making decisions, very few studies have explored how ecological variables, including predation pressure, shape how group size affects decision making. Our cross-population study of wild-caught guppies (Poecilia reticulata) shows that leading individuals from larger groups made faster decisions when deciding to leave the start area and reach the junction of a Y-maze, which allows for compromise over timing. However, at the junction of the Y when the fish needed to make a mutually exclusive decision that does not allow for compromise, there was no effect of group size in high predation fish on decision speed. In fish from low predation habitats, speed was fastest at the intermediate group size with a decline in speed in the largest group size. These results challenge the view that decision making always improves with group size and shows this effect depends on ecological and decision-making conditions.
Highlights
IntroductionLarger groups are statistically more likely to contain individuals that make decisions more rapidly, for example because these individuals are less risk averse (i.e., are bolder (Ioannou & Dall, 2016)), hungrier (Balaban-Feld et al, 2019), or better informed (Ioannou et al, 2015)
Group size had a stronger negative effect on the time taken from the start of the trials to reach the decision zone in fish from low predation habitats (Figure 2)
Our experiment shows that the speed of decision making is affected by group size in fish from low predation habitats more than in fish from high predation habitats, at least in small groups from 2 to 8 individuals
Summary
Larger groups are statistically more likely to contain individuals that make decisions more rapidly, for example because these individuals are less risk averse (i.e., are bolder (Ioannou & Dall, 2016)), hungrier (Balaban-Feld et al, 2019), or better informed (Ioannou et al, 2015) If these individuals can disproportionately influence group decisions through leadership (Ioannou et al, 2011), decision speed can increase via this ‘pool-of-competence’ effect (Liker & Bókony, 2009; Morand-Ferron & Quinn, 2011; Bisazza et al, 2014). It is associated with more evenly distributed, egalitarian decision making in contrast to the pool-of-competence effect
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