An asymmetric producer-scrounger game: Body size and the social foraging behavior of coho salmon

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dc.contributor.authorPhillips, Jessica A.
dc.contributor.authorPeacock, Stephanie J.
dc.contributor.authorBateman, Andrew
dc.contributor.authorBartlett, Mackenzie
dc.contributor.authorLewis, Mark A.
dc.contributor.authorKrkošek, Martin
dc.date.accessioned2025-04-15T19:22:07Z
dc.date.available2025-04-15T19:22:07Z
dc.date.issued2018
dc.description.abstractA tension between cooperation and conflict characterizes the behavioral dynamics of many social species. The foraging benefits of group living include increased efficiency and reduced need for vigilance, but social foraging can also encourage theft of captured prey from conspecifics. The payoffs of stealing prey from others (scrounging) versus capturing prey (producing) may depend not only on the frequency of each foraging strategy in the group but also on an individual's ability to steal. By observing the foraging behavior of juvenile coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch), we found that, within a group, relatively smaller coho acted primarily as producers and took longer to handle prey, and were therefore more likely to be targeted by scroungers than relatively larger coho. Further, our observations suggest that the frequency of scrounging may be higher when groups contained individuals of different sizes. Based on these observations, we developed a model of phenotype-limited producer-scrounger dynamics, in which rates of stealing were structured by the relative size of producers and scroungers within the foraging group. Model simulations show that when the success of stealing is positively related to body size, relatively large predators should tend to be scroungers while smaller predators should be producers. Contrary to previous models, we also found that, under certain conditions, producer and scrounger strategies could coexist for both large and small phenotypes. Large scroungers tended to receive the highest payoff, suggesting that producer-scrounger dynamics may result in an uneven distribution of benefits among group members that—under the right conditions—could entrench social positions of dominance.
dc.description.reviewstatusReviewed
dc.description.scholarlevelFaculty
dc.description.sponsorshipThe work was supported by the Watershed Watch Salmon Society, an Undergraduate Student Research Award from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Rhodes Scholarship to JAP; an NSERC Vanier Scholarship to SJP; an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship to AB; and Canada Research Chairs and NSERC Discovery Grants to ML and MK.
dc.identifier.citationPhillips, J. A., Peacock, S. J., Bateman, A., Bartlett, M., Lewis, M. A., & Krkošek, M. (2018). An asymmetric producer-scrounger game: body size and the social foraging behavior of coho salmon. Theoretical Ecology, 11(4), 417-431. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12080-018-0375-2
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.1007/s12080-018-0375-2
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1828/21941
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherTheoretical Ecology
dc.rightsCC BY 4.0
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subjectkleptoparasitism
dc.subjectgame theory
dc.subjectcoho salmon
dc.subjectsocial foraging
dc.titleAn asymmetric producer-scrounger game: Body size and the social foraging behavior of coho salmon
dc.typeArticle

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