Data from: Information use and resource competition: an integrative framework

Organisms may reduce uncertainty regarding how best to exploit their environment by collecting information about resource distribution. We develop a model to demonstrate how competition can facilitate or constrain an individual’s ability to use information when acquiring resources. Since resource distribution underpins both selection on information use and the strength and nature of competition between individuals, we demonstrate interdependencies between the two that should be common in nature. Individuals in our model can search for resources either personally or by using social information. We explore selection on social information use across a comprehensive range of ecological conditions, generalising the producer-scrounger framework to a wide diversity of taxa and resources. We show that resource ecology – defined by scarcity, depletion rate, and monopolisability – determines patterns of individual differences in social information use. These differences suggest co-evolutionary processes linking dominance systems and social information use, with implications for the evolutionary demography of populations.生物体可通过收集资源分布相关信息，降低最优开发利用环境的不确定性。本研究构建模型，阐释竞争在个体获取资源过程中，如何对其信息利用能力产生促进或限制作用。鉴于资源分布既是信息利用选择压力的核心基础，同时也决定个体间竞争的强度与本质，本研究揭示了二者间普遍存在于自然系统中的相互依存关系。本模型中的个体可通过两种方式搜寻资源：独立搜寻或利用社会信息。本研究在涵盖全面的生态条件范围内，探究了社会信息利用的选择压力，并将生产者-搭便车者框架（producer-scrounger framework）推广至更多样的类群与资源场景中。研究表明，由资源稀缺性、消耗速率与可垄断性所定义的资源生态学特征，决定了个体间社会信息利用差异的模式。上述差异暗示，优势等级系统与社会信息利用之间存在协同进化过程，这一结论对种群的进化人口统计学特征具有重要启示。