Question: According to the Optimal Foraging Theory, animals feed optimally when they choose their prey items based on profitability. Profitability represents the ratio between energy gain
According to the Optimal Foraging Theory, animals feed optimally when they "choose" their prey items based on profitability. Profitability represents the ratio between energy gain and time spent handling a given food item. Based on this definition, can you write your own formula for profitability? Try first without looking at your notes. If you can't figure it out, have a look at the class notes. Problem: Consider an American Robin foraging in the green areas around the ISC building here at UMass Boston. Imagine that the bird finds two prey items: an earthworm and a cricket. The as an energy content of approximately 2023.2 KJ, their handling time of 5.3 seconds, while the cricket's energy content is aproxim2242.62 KJ, with a profitability of 367.6 KJ/s. Base on these values, the Profitability of the earthworm is 381.7 KJ/s, and the handling time of the cricket is 6.1 seconds
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