Optimal Foraging Theory Examples
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Foraging
Author: David W. Stephens
language: en
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Release Date: 2008-09-15
Foraging is fundamental to animal survival and reproduction, yet it is much more than a simple matter of finding food; it is a biological imperative. Animals must find and consume resources to succeed, and they make extraordinary efforts to do so. For instance, pythons rarely eat, but when they do, their meals are large—as much as 60 percent larger than their own bodies. The snake’s digestive system is normally dormant, but during digestion metabolic rates can increase fortyfold. A python digesting quietly on the forest floor has the metabolic rate of thoroughbred in a dead heat. This and related foraging processes have broad applications in ecology, cognitive science, anthropology, and conservation biology—and they can be further extrapolated in economics, neurobiology, and computer science. Foraging is the first comprehensive review of the topic in more than twenty years. A monumental undertaking, this volume brings together twenty-two experts from throughout the field to offer the latest on the mechanics of foraging, modern foraging theory, and foraging ecology. The fourteen essays cover all the relevant issues, including cognition, individual behavior, caching behavior, parental behavior, antipredator behavior, social behavior, population and community ecology, herbivory, and conservation. Considering a wide range of taxa, from birds to mammals to amphibians, Foraging will be the definitive guide to the field.
The Physics of Foraging
Author: Gandhimohan. M. Viswanathan
language: en
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release Date: 2011-06-02
Do the movements of animals, including humans, follow patterns that can be described quantitatively by simple laws of motion? If so, then why? These questions have attracted the attention of scientists in many disciplines, and stimulated debates ranging from ecological matters to queries such as 'how can there be free will if one follows a law of motion?' This is the first book on this rapidly evolving subject, introducing random searches and foraging in a way that can be understood by readers without a previous background on the subject. It reviews theory as well as experiment, addresses open problems and perspectives, and discusses applications ranging from the colonization of Madagascar by Austronesians to the diffusion of genetically modified crops. The book will interest physicists working in the field of anomalous diffusion and movement ecology as well as ecologists already familiar with the concepts and methods of statistical physics.
Foraging Behavior
Foraging behavior has always been a central concern of ecology. Understanding what animals eat is clearly an essential component of under standing many ecological issues including energy flow, competition and adaptation. Theoretical and empirical developments in the late 1960's and 1970's led to a new emphasis in the study of foraging behavior, the study of individual animals in both field and laboratory. This development, in turn, led to an explosion of interest in foraging. Part of the reason for this explosion is that when foraging is studied at the individual level, it is relevant to many disciplines. Behaviorists, including ethologists and psychologists, are interested in any attempt to understand behavior. Ecologists know that a better understanding of foraging will contribute to resolving a number of important ecological issues. Anthropologists and others are applying the ideas coming out of the study of foraging behavior to problems within their disciplines. These developments led to a multidisciplinary symposium on foraging behavior, held as part of the 1978 Animal Behavior Society meetings in Seattle, Washington. Many ecologists, ethologists and psychologists participated or attended. The symposium was very successful. generating a high level of excitement. As a result, the participants decided to publish the proceedings of the symposium (Kami1 & Sargent 1981).