TY - JOUR
T1 - Foraging in a patchy environment
T2 - prey-encounter rate and residence time distributions
AU - Marschall, Elizabeth A.
AU - Chesson, Peter L.
AU - Stein, Roy A.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Dennis DeVries for his many contributions to this work. Richard Green, Tom Martin and an anonymous referee provided helpful com-ments on the manuscript. Equipment and travel for this work were funded by The Ohio Cooperative Fisheries Research Unit.
PY - 1989/3
Y1 - 1989/3
N2 - Small bluegill sunfish, Lepomis macrochirus, foraging among patches in the laboratory did not search systematically within a patch; their intercapture intervals did not differ from a model of random prey encounter within a patch. Patch-residence time, number of prey eaten, and giving-up time (time between last prey capture and leaving the patch) were measured for bluegills foraging in two different three-patch 'environments' (a constant environment, in which each patch began with the same number of prey and a variable environment, in which two patches began with low prey density and one patch with high prey density). When compared with three decision rules a forager may use to determine when to leave a patch, the data most closely agreed with predictions from 'constant residence time' rule. Bluegills responded to changes in the distribution of prey among patches, but not by using different decision rules. There was qualitative, but not quantitative, agreement with a model of random residence times. The total number of prey eaten by a bluegill during a foraging bout was similar to the number predicted from a model of random search and random residence times.
AB - Small bluegill sunfish, Lepomis macrochirus, foraging among patches in the laboratory did not search systematically within a patch; their intercapture intervals did not differ from a model of random prey encounter within a patch. Patch-residence time, number of prey eaten, and giving-up time (time between last prey capture and leaving the patch) were measured for bluegills foraging in two different three-patch 'environments' (a constant environment, in which each patch began with the same number of prey and a variable environment, in which two patches began with low prey density and one patch with high prey density). When compared with three decision rules a forager may use to determine when to leave a patch, the data most closely agreed with predictions from 'constant residence time' rule. Bluegills responded to changes in the distribution of prey among patches, but not by using different decision rules. There was qualitative, but not quantitative, agreement with a model of random residence times. The total number of prey eaten by a bluegill during a foraging bout was similar to the number predicted from a model of random search and random residence times.
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U2 - 10.1016/0003-3472(89)90091-2
DO - 10.1016/0003-3472(89)90091-2
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0024567338
SN - 0003-3472
VL - 37
SP - 444
EP - 454
JO - Animal Behaviour
JF - Animal Behaviour
IS - PART 3
ER -