Information cascades in behavioural ecology

Abstract

In ecology, information cascades have been used to explain a variety of collective behaviours, including mate selection, anti-predatory responses, and social foraging. Taxonomically diverse, information cascades occur in many group-living animals, including ant colonies, schools of fish, bird flocks, and social mammals. In this thesis, I studied the form and function of information cascades that drive a wide variety of group-level behaviours. In chapter one, I surveyed and reviewed the published literature regarding information cascades in biological systems. I discuss a selection of past studies to illustrate the diversity of information cascades, highlighting the adaptive significance and fitness consequences of different cascade types. I build a conceptual framework inspired by the variation in outcome and structure of information cascades elicited under different environmental or informational conditions. In chapter two, I experimentally tested the impact of maladaptive information cascades on the foraging performance of ants (Pheidole rugosula). Here, I introduced misinformation into foraging networks and measured the ants’ ability to re-establish foraging activity. I find that colonies readily recover and maintain robust foraging efforts when faced with erroneous social information. Overall, I find that information cascades drive critical collective behaviours in a diverse range of animal taxa. I also find that P. rugosula avoids significant maladaptive cascades despite the introduction of misinformation into their foraging networks. Information cascades warrant further research to improve our understanding of their role in nature and to decipher potential insights into managing information cascades in human systems.