Table 1.
Overview of the model parameters and the values used in our simulations.
Figure 1.
A comparison of foraging success measured as daily gain in honey under high, medium and low food densities, either with spatial information transfer (SI) or without spatial information transfer (NI).
Model runs lasted 48 days after an initial period of 3 days SI (the 3 day acclimatization period is not shown). The first row shows the pure SI (solid black line) and NI (dotted black line) cases. These baselines are also shown for the model runs where switching between SI and NI occurred (rows 2–4, black solid and dotted lines). Rows 2–4 show the cases for SI (white background)/NI (grey background) cycles that last 2 days, 3 days or 12 days respectively. All the simulations shown here started with the SI treatment on day 4. The last row shows the aggregated simulation results (means ± s.e.) for the three food densities and SI/NI cycles (solid circles: SI, open circles: NI) including the second set of simulations that started with the NI treatment on day 4.
Figure 2.
A comparison of foraging success measured as mean daily gain in honey (means ± s.e.) under varying patch longevities and with various intervals between experimental switches of spatial information transfer (SI) and no spatial information transfer (NI) treatments (no switches, 2-day cycles, 3-day cycles, 12-day cycles).
The benefit of SI varies with patch longevity, with increasing benefits from one day (a), 7 days (b), 14 days (c), to 28 days (d). SI is more beneficial, if patches are relatively stable over time. Switching between SI and NI treatment hides the benefit of SI to a large degree (solid circle: SI, open circles: NI).
Figure 3.
A comparison of foraging success measured as mean daily gain in honey (means ± s.e.) under the absence of costs to spatial information transfer (SI) and with SI, or no spatial information transfer (NI).
The switching between SI and NI treatments masks the benefit of SI even if there are no costs to SI (solid circle: SI, open circles: NI).