Resource Preferences: Past Costs Affect Future Choices By Least Chipmunks

Abstract

When given the choice between stimuli previously associated with equal quality resources, animals tend to choose the stimulus associated with greater deprivation and greater effort. However, past research has generally approached this issue using extensive, lab-based training on these associations. Such training regimens are unlikely to be seen in the natural foraging behavior of animals and it remains unclear whether or not such preferences emerge in more naturalistic-experimental paradigms. In the present series of studies, I corrected for this limitation by giving least chipmunks (Tamias minimus) minimal exposure to two patches of seeds, both presented under different cost circumstances. In all four experiments, one patch was easy to obtain while the other required more effort or more potential risk. Each patch was then associated with a different visual or olfactory stimulus in order to measure choice when the patches were later made equally available. Ultimately, the results were mixed. No effort-based preferences were observed in the visual cue studies, but emerged for both of the olfactory associated conditions. For chipmunks, it seems that costs can influence later preferences when the resources are obtained under semi-naturalistic foraging conditions and when those conditions involve the use of olfactory stimuli.