The relative importance of social information use for population abundance in group-living and non-grouping prey

• Published in: Journal of theoretical biology 2023-11, Vol.575, p.111626-111626, Article 111626
• Main Authors: Tóth, Zoltán, Bartók, Roland, Nagy, Zsófia, Szappanos, Viktor R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animals; Antipredator response; Detection networks; Ecosystem; Individual-based model; Population Dynamics; Predatory Behavior; Predator–prey interaction; Social information use
• ISSN: 0022-5193; 1095-8541
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2023.111626

•Inadvertent social information (ISI) use can facilitate population abundance.•The extent of benefits from this process is unknown for non-grouping (NG) prey.•In most simulations, ISI use lead to population-level benefits in group-living prey.•In NG prey, such benefits depend on detection ability, density and false alarms.•High predation pressure can facilitate ISI use in both prey types. Predator–prey relationships are fundamental components of ecosystem functioning, within which the spatial consequences of prey social organization can alter predation rates. Group-living (GL) species are known to exploit inadvertent social information (ISI) that facilitates population persistence under predation risk. Still, the extent to which non-grouping (NG) prey can benefit from similar processes is unknown. Here we built an individual-based model to explore and compare the population-level consequences of ISI use in GL and NG prey. We differentiated between GL and NG prey only by the presence or absence of social attraction toward conspecifics that drives individual movement patterns. We found that the extent of the benefits of socially acquired predator information in NG highly depends on the prey’s ability to detect nearby predators, prey density and the occurrence of false alarms. Conversely, even moderate probabilities of ISI use and predator detection can lead to maximal population-level benefits in GL prey. This theoretical work provides additional insights into the conditions under which ISI use can facilitate population persistence irrespective of prey social organisation.