"Social feedback and the adaptive value of information in a dynamic game of divorce"Canterbury, TristanInterest in social information use in animals is burgeoning, but explicit information theoretic perspectives are rare, and feedback between information use and social uncertainty is poorly understood. We model a dynamic game of observation and divorce wherein decisions depend on female knowledge about the quality of her mate. Females must decide whether to make costly observations of mate quality, and whether to divorce their partners and enter the pairing pool. We explore the roles of uncertainty, cue noise, observation costs, lifespan, and the distribution of mate qualities in the pairing pool on the adaptive value of information use and divorce. We find that the evolutionarily stable divorce strategy is determined by the pairing pool quality distribution, which is influenced by residential divorce and information use strategies. We also find that, while a long lifespan, low cue noise, and low observation costs can increase the value of information use, feedback from information use on uncertainty in the pairing pool can also erode these effects. Thus, social feedback is likely to play a significant role in shaping information use strategies in nature. We also outline extensions to the model to resolve the impact of greater social complexity in this context. |
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