Optimizing the search for resources by sharing information: Mongolian gazelles as a case study

TL;DR

This study models how communication influences search efficiency in Mongolian gazelles, revealing that optimal habitat search occurs at intermediate communication scales, with too little or too much communication impairing performance.

Contribution

It introduces a novel model linking communication range to search efficiency and applies it to Mongolian gazelles, highlighting the optimal communication scale for habitat search.

Findings

Search efficiency peaks at intermediate communication scales

Excessive or insufficient communication worsens search performance

Modeling approach can be applied to other biological search behaviors

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between communication and search efficiency in a biological context by proposing a model of Brownian searchers with long-range pairwise interaction. After a general study of the properties of the model, we show an application to the particular case of acoustic communication among Mongolian gazelle, for which data are available, searching for good habitat areas. Using Monte Carlo simulations and density equations, our results point out that the search is optimal (i.e. the mean first hitting time among searchers is minimum) at intermediate scales of communication, showing that both an excess and a lack of information may worsen it.