Opportunity-Cost Foraging Models for Stationary and Mobile Predators

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Abstract
A simple graphic technique is presented. It relates 2 existing foraging models to marginal valuations of the time and energy currencies used as proxies for fitness. For anthropologists it is also capable of relating these proxy currencies to utility or preference. The predictions of the models are responsive to important theoretical assumptions of evolutionary ecology research: costs in behavioral trade-offs are opportunity costs, often evaluated at the margin. The approach offers a flexible and potentially subtle method of analyzing foraging behavior of both stationary and mobile foragers. It leads to extension of some existing hypotheses about stationary predators, and it refines existing hypotheses about mobile, searching predators.

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