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The currency of optimal foraging theory is energy because it is an essential component for organisms, but it is also the downfall of optimal foraging theory in regard to archaeology. [26] Optimal foraging theory assumes that behaviour is to some extent influenced by genetic makeup.
The marginal value theorem (MVT) is an optimality model that usually describes the behavior of an optimally foraging individual in a system where resources (often food) are located in discrete patches separated by areas with no resources. Due to the resource-free space, animals must spend time traveling between patches.
As an optimal foraging model, the Ideal Free Distribution predicts that the ratio of individuals between two foraging sites will match the ratio of resources in those two sites. This prediction is similar to the Matching Law of individual choice, which states that an individual's rate of response will be proportional to the positive ...
Optimality models are used to predict optimal behavior (ex. time spent foraging). To make predictions about optimal behavior, cost-benefit graphs are used to visualize the optimality model (see Fig 1). Optimality occurs at the point in which the difference between benefits and costs for obtaining a currency via a particular behavior is maximized.
The reason a consumer may switch from eating one resource, to eating another, is because it may increase an individual's foraging efficiency and therefore its inclusive fitness. [6] [7] It has been argued that frequency-dependent predation is predicted from optimal foraging theory. [8]
This theory argues that because of the key importance of successful foraging to an individual's survival, it should be possible to predict foraging behavior by using decision theory to determine the behavior that an "optimal forager" would exhibit. Such a forager has perfect knowledge of what to do to maximize usable food intake.
The basic tenet of the DRM is that the intake of energy by an animal passes through two consecutive processes, food ingestion or foraging, and food digestion. Optimal foraging theory describes the diet selection if the food ingestion rate is the limiting factor. The DRM describes diet selection and foraging behavior if digestion is the rate ...
The observed values of connectance in empirical food webs appear to be constrained by the variability of the physical environment, [4] by habitat type, [5] which will reflect on an organism's diet breadth driven by optimal foraging behaviour. This ultimately links the structure of these ecological networks to the behaviour of individual organisms.