Optimal Foraging in Glossophagine Bats: When to Give Up

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The foraging strategy of animals whose presence steadily depletes a food resource is discussed. When animals should switch from a patch they are depleting to another patch is examined. Switching rules are invented, as well as computer-simulated foraging bouts under these rules and matched computer distributions of the food in abandoned patches with actual resource depletion by the animals. The optimal switching rule as seen by the computer (that which gives maximum yield of food per animal energy invested) is also the rule which best fits the real distribution of left-overs when the patch is abandoned.