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.