Information under anthropogenic change: how does social living respond to increased noise and turbidity?

Many species, across a wide range of taxa, rely on indirect information from others in addition to private information they have acquired directly from their environment. When living in groups, sharing of this ‘social’ information can result in more efficient avoidance of predators or exploitation of ephemeral resources. However environmental conditions, often changed by human activity, can alter the ability of individuals to gain information and then to make adaptive decisions. While recent research has begun to reveal how anthropogenic effects such as turbidity and noise pollution are affecting individual decision making and social interactions, very little is known about how information and decision making in a social context are affected. This project will use the guppy, Poecilia reticulata. In its natural range in Trinidad, the fish is known to balance private and social information, have a fission-fusion social structure, and make decisions collectively. Moreover, there is variation between sites in exposure to turbidity and noise, making this an ideal model system to study anthropogenic effects on information use.