Food finding in colonially nesting birds

This paper proposes a mathematical model of food information transfer in nesting colonies. The food information transfer hypothesis ( Ward & Zahavi, 1973 ; Ibis 115 , 517) predicts that individual birds searching for food in unpredictable environments benefit by returning to a central location (i.e. a roost or a colony) and subsequently by following successful conspecifics to a good foraging patch. A game theoretic approach using average feeding rate as a currency showed that the information centre mechanism is a Nash solution to this game in environments characterized by large, widely disseminated food patches. However, individual foraging also comes out as a second, cooperative stable solution. The results are related to the currency maximized and to other aspects of food finding in colonies and roosts.