Data from: Exploring foraging decisions in a social primate using discrete choice models

There is a growing appreciation of the multiple social and nonsocial factors influencing the foraging behavior of social animals, but little understanding of how these factors depend on habitat characteristics or individual traits. This partly reflects the difficulties inherent in using conventional statistical techniques to analyze multi-factor, multi-context foraging decisions. Discrete choice models provide a way to do so, and we demonstrate this by using them to investigate patch preference in a wild population of social foragers (chacma baboons, Papio ursinus). Data were collected from 29 adults across two social groups encompassing 683 foraging decisions over a six-month period, and the results interpreted using an information theoretic approach. Baboon foraging decisions were influenced by multiple nonsocial and social factors, and were often contingent on the characteristics of the habitat or individual. Differences in decision-making between habitats were consistent with changes in interference competition costs but not changes in social foraging benefits. Individual differences in decision-making were suggestive of a trade-off between dominance rank and social capital. Our findings emphasize that taking a multi-factor, multi-context approach is important to fully understand animal decision-making. We also demonstrate how discrete choice models can be used to achieve this.

学界对影响群居动物觅食行为的多重社会与非社会因素的认知正不断加深，但对这些因素如何随生境特征或个体特质发生变化的理解却极为有限。这在一定程度上源于传统统计技术在分析多因素、多情境觅食决策时存在固有难点。离散选择模型（Discrete choice models）为解决此类问题提供了可行路径，本研究以野生群居觅食种群——南非大狒狒（chacma baboons，*Papio ursinus*）为对象，通过应用该模型探究其觅食斑块偏好，以此验证了该方法的有效性。研究数据采集自两个社群共29只成年个体，涵盖6个月内的683次觅食决策，并采用信息论方法对结果进行解读。结果显示，狒狒的觅食决策受多重社会与非社会因素共同影响，且往往依赖于生境或个体特征。不同生境下的决策差异与干扰竞争成本的变化相符，但与社会觅食收益的变化无关。个体间的决策差异则暗示了优势等级与社会资本之间存在权衡关系。本研究结果表明，采用多因素、多情境的研究方法对于全面理解动物决策机制至关重要，同时也验证了离散选择模型在该领域的应用价值。