Social learning among predators can produce behavioral correlations which alter their diet preferences and the population dynamics of their prey. In a previous model by Borofsky and Feldman (2021), social learning improved the rate at which predators learned successful hunting strategies but also caused behavioral diet preferences that resulted in the predators over-exploiting one type of prey, ultimately lowering their own fitness. However, the predator population size was held constant. In this model, we allow the predator population size to change and ask: (1) can high levels of social learning drive a prey population to extinction, (2) does social learning increase predator population growth, and (3) which ecological factors (predator death rate, prey depletion, and the amount of alternative food available) encourage the evolution of social learning? We construct a one predator, two-prey model in which the predator population size changes and predators can learn how to catch prey. One prey type is called the challenging prey (CP) because it has a changing population size and predators need to learn how to hunt it. The second prey, called the alternate prey (AP), has a constant population size and the predators innately know how to catch it.
Results/Conclusions
We find that if there is not enough alternate prey to sustain the predators, a mutant that learns socially at a small frequency can invade a population of predators that only learn individually. The frequency of social learning that optimizes predator population size increases if individual learning about the prey tends to be unsuccessful. This optimal level of social learning depends nonlinearly on predator death rate and the amount of alternative prey available but does not depend on the parameter controlling the rate of prey depletion by predation, unlike previous models. As expected, high levels of social learning can drive the CP to extinction. Our model highlights the ecological importance of considering how predators acquire information about their prey.
