AI Article Synopsis
- Animals do not get all their nutritional needs from a single food source, so they often need to forage across multiple species for a balanced diet.
- A new model has been developed to enhance optimal foraging theory, allowing animals to balance and maximize their resource intake by considering the time spent on various food sources.
- The model suggests that resource balancing occurs at the foraging path level, while maximizing intake happens at the specific patch level, with food choice based on the intake rates and resource ratios of the available food species.
Article Abstract
The concentrations of resources in forage are not perfectly balanced to the needs of an animal, and food species differ in these concentrations. Under many circumstances, animals should thus forage on multiple food species to attain the maximum and most balanced intake of several resources. In this article we present a model to extend optimal foraging theory to incorporate concurrent foraging for multiple resources from several food species. A balancing of resources is achieved by representing the amount of a resource as the time during which it is used. Optimization is considered at two hierarchical levels: the time spent in a patch and the proportion of patches of each food species included in the foraging path. Our model results show that the balancing of resource intake can be achieved at the level of the foraging path, while the maximization of intake can be realized at the nested patch level. The choice for a food species should be dependent on the differences in intake and resource ratios between the food species. Under free choice of food species, the optimal patch residence time is subject not to differences between patches but to the local intake rate.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/598500 | DOI Listing |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
Wild bees show local spatial and temporal dynamics in southeastern US blueberry farmscapes.
Environ Entomol
January 2025
Department of Entomology, University of Georgia, Tifton, GA, USA.
Wild bee communities are the target of various conservation and ecological restoration programs. Strategic conservation can influence bee communities visiting fields and help mitigate pollinator limitations in fruit production. However, planning compatible conservation strategies and gauging their effectiveness requires understanding how local communities vary across space and time in crops and adjacent semi-natural areas.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAssessing bioaccumulation with biomagnification factors from dietary bioaccumulation tests.
Integr Environ Assess Manag
January 2025
ExxonMobil Petroleum and Chemical BV, Machelen, Belgium.
Despite the fact that the UN Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants specifically acknowledges that Arctic ecosystems and Indigenous communities are particularly at risk due to biomagnification of contaminants in traditional foods, the bioconcentration factor (BCF) of substances in fish remains the preferred metric for identifying the biomagnification potential of organic substances. The BCF measures uptake of substances from water in water-breathing organisms, but not biomagnification of contaminants from food sources. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the biomagnification factor (BMF) can be used in bioaccumulation assessments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFApplication of artificial intelligence for nutrient estimation in surface water bodies of basins with intensive agriculture.
Integr Environ Assess Manag
January 2025
División de Estudios de Posgrado e Investigación, Tecnológico Nacional de México/IT de Culiacán, Culiacán, Sinaloa, México.
Eutrophication is one of the most relevant concerns due to the risk to water supply and food security. Nitrogen and phosphorus chemical species concentrations determined the risk and magnitude of eutrophication. These analyses are even more relevant in basins with intensive agriculture due to agrochemical discharges.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFloodplain forests drive fruit-eating fish diversity at the Amazon Basin-scale.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
January 2025
Centre de Recherche sur la Biodiversité et l'Environnement, Université de Toulouse, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse, Université Toulouse 3 - Paul Sabatier, Toulouse F-31062, France.
Unlike most rivers globally, nearly all lowland Amazonian rivers have unregulated flow, supporting seasonally flooded floodplain forests. Floodplain forests harbor a unique tree species assemblage adapted to flooding and specialized fauna, including fruit-eating fish that migrate seasonally into floodplains, favoring expansive floodplain areas. Frugivorous fish are forest-dependent fauna critical to forest regeneration via seed dispersal and support commercial and artisanal fisheries.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRabies transmitted from vampires to cattle: An overview.
PLoS One
January 2025
Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, United States of America.
Rabies is a zoonotic infectious disease of global distribution that impacts human and animal health. In rural Latin America, rabies negatively impacts food security and the economy due to losses in livestock production. The common vampire bat, Desmodus rotundus, is the main reservoir and transmitter of rabies virus (RABV) to domestic animals in Latin America.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWant AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!