scispace - formally typeset
Journal ArticleDOI

Optimal behavior: can foragers balance two conflicting demands?

Andrew Sih
- 28 Nov 1980 - 
- Vol. 210, Iss: 4473, pp 1041-1043
TLDR
A backswimmer, Notonecta hoffmanni, was capable of balancing these two conflicting factors adaptively and was able to compare the observed behaviors with predictions derived from fitness considerations.
Abstract
According to much current theory, organisms should be able to balance the conflicting demands of the need to feed efficiently and the need to avoid preadtors while feeding. In an experimental conflict situation, it was possible to evaluate the relative fitnesses associated with the available choices and to compare the observed behaviors with predictions derived from fitness considerations. A backswimmer, Notonecta hoffmanni, was capable of balancing these two conflicting factors adaptively.

read more

Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI

Behavioral decisions made under the risk of predation: a review and prospectus

TL;DR: This work has shown that predation is a major selective force in the evolution of several morphological and behavioral characteristics of animals and the importance of predation during evolutionary time has been underestimated.

Citation classic - optimal foraging - a selective review of theory and tests

TL;DR: A review of the literature on optimal foraging can be found in this article, with a focus on the theoretical developments and the data that permit tests of the predictions, and the authors conclude that the simple models so far formulated are supported by available data and that they are optimistic about the value both now and in the future.
Journal ArticleDOI

Optimal Foraging Theory: A Critical Review

TL;DR: It follows that the proportion of individuals in a population foraging in ways that enhance their fitness will tend to increase over time, and the average foraging behavior will increasingly come to be characterized by those characteristics that enhance individual fitness.
Journal ArticleDOI

Behavioral syndromes: An integrative overview

TL;DR: It is suggested that behavioral syndromes could play a useful role as an integrative bridge between genetics, experience, neuroendocrine mechanisms, evolution, and ecology.
Journal ArticleDOI

An Experimental Test of the Effects of Predation Risk on Habitat Use in Fish

TL;DR: Methods to predict the additional mortality expected on a cohort due to a reduction in growth rate are developed, and the potential for predation risk to enforce size—class segregation is discussed, which leads de facto to resource partitioning.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI

Optimal foraging, the marginal value theorem.

TL;DR: This paper will develop a model for the use of a “patchy habitat” by an optimal predator and depresses the availability of food to itself so that the amount of food gained for time spent in a patch of type i is hi(T), where the function rises to an asymptote.
Journal ArticleDOI

On Optimal Use of a Patchy Environment

TL;DR: A graphical method is discussed which allows a specification of the optimal diet of a predator in terms of the net amount of energy gained from a capture of prey as compared to the energy expended in searching for the prey.
Journal ArticleDOI

Optimal foraging: A selective review of theory and tests

TL;DR: The general conclusion is that the simple models so far formulated are supported are supported reasonably well by available data and that the author is optimistic about the value both now and in the future of optimal foraging theory.

Citation classic - optimal foraging - a selective review of theory and tests

TL;DR: A review of the literature on optimal foraging can be found in this article, with a focus on the theoretical developments and the data that permit tests of the predictions, and the authors conclude that the simple models so far formulated are supported by available data and that they are optimistic about the value both now and in the future.
Journal ArticleDOI

Influence of a predator on the optimal foraging behaviour of sticklebacks ( Gasterosteus aculeatus L.)

TL;DR: Three-spined sticklebacks' foraging behaviour changes such that they attack swarm regions of lower density which provide a lower feeding rate but should increase their ability to detect an approaching predator, predicted by a model using Pontryagin's principle of maximisation.
Related Papers (5)