School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Zoology Building, Tillydrone Avenue, Aberdeen AB24 2TZ, United Kingdom.
Am Nat. 2012 May;179(5):606-20. doi: 10.1086/665004. Epub 2012 Mar 28.
There is increasing empirical evidence that individuals utilize social and environmental cues in making decisions as to whether or not to disperse. However, we lack theory exploring the influence of information acquisition and use on the evolution of dispersal strategies and metapopulation dynamics. We used an individual-based, spatially explicit simulation model to explore the evolution of emigration strategies under varying precision of information about the natal patch, cost of information acquisition, and environmental predictability. Our findings show an interesting interplay between information use and the evolved emigration propensity. Lack of information led to higher emigration probabilities in more unpredictable environments but to lower emigration probabilities in constant or highly predictable scenarios. Somewhat-informed dispersal strategies were selected for in most cases, even when the acquisition of information was associated with a moderate reproductive cost. Notably, selection rarely favored investment in acquisition of high-precision information, and the tendency to invest in information acquisition was greatest in predictable environments when the associated cost was low. Our results highlight that information use can affect dispersal in a complex manner and also emphasize that information-acquisition behaviors can themselves come under strong selection, resulting in evolutionary dynamics that are tightly coupled to those of context-dependent behaviors.
越来越多的经验证据表明，个体在决定是否分散时会利用社会和环境线索。然而，我们缺乏探索信息获取和使用对分散策略和复合种群动态进化影响的理论。我们使用基于个体的、空间明确的模拟模型来探索在关于出生地斑块的信息精度、信息获取成本和环境可预测性不同的情况下，移民策略的进化。我们的研究结果表明，信息使用和进化的移民倾向之间存在有趣的相互作用。缺乏信息会导致在更不可预测的环境中移民的可能性更高，但在恒定或高度可预测的情况下移民的可能性更低。在大多数情况下，即使信息获取与适度的繁殖成本相关联，也会选择某种程度的明智的分散策略。值得注意的是，选择很少有利于投资获取高精度信息，而且当相关成本较低时，在可预测的环境中投资信息获取的倾向最大。我们的结果强调了信息使用可以以复杂的方式影响分散，并且还强调了信息获取行为本身可能受到强烈选择，导致与上下文相关行为紧密耦合的进化动态。
