Bayes’ Theorem and its application in animal behavior
In Chapter 16, we learned how previous knowledge and information could affect people’s decision-making process. When people are connected by networks, they can influence other’s behavior and decisions very easily by passing their information and knowledge. We also learned Bayes Rule, so that we can compute conditional probability of choosing a case versus other given a restraint. Bayes’ Rule is commonly used to calculate the accuracy of medical test. Not only used for the calculation of medical test, but also, Bayes Rule can also be applied to explain some of animal behaviors such as foraging in hatches and mating.
If the ancestors of an organism have evolved in a habitat and were exposed to pretty stable environment for a long time, the organism in current time period might have adopted this information through natural selection and their behaviors might have been altered by this prior information. It can be also said that the organism is using the prior information to change their behaviors to increase their survival, maximizing their payoffs. To be more specific, we can look into foraging behavior. Given that the animal has a lot of experiences in environment around patch area, it can determine the types of patch and decide whether it would find new patch to feed itself by calculating conditional probability of finding potential food sources. We can also apply direct benefit effect on their decision-making process. They can decide either to stay or leave, depending which choice will give them more benefits, high payoffs.
We can also look into their mating choice. Females search for suitable mate depending on the phenotypes of previously encountered males. This certainly shows Bayesian mating behavior.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0030-1299.2006.14228.x/abstract