Study Questions for Optimal Foraging

1. Describe the central assumption underlying optimal foraging theory. How would a student of the adaptationists programme modify their assumptions if the did not find that an animal was foraging optimally?

2. Describe the problem faced by a central place foraging chipmunk. What additional energy considerations does a parental starling face from the viewpoint of central place foraging?

3. Describe how learning as a cognitive process, and memory as a cognitive process limit the solutions that animals can come up with from the point of view of optimal foraging? Do these processes constrain optimal foraging and if so, why?

4. Why might animals appear to risk aversive? Explain in terms of a bumblebee foraging on flowers and a cognitive model of memory.

5. Why are animals gamblers? What is the adaptive benefit of this behavior? Give an example of an animal likely to be risk prone.

6. Apply the “adaptationist's programme” to optimal foraging in oystercatchers. List the factors that you would have to build into your optimal foraging model.

7. Describe three different currencies that might be optimized in animals (hint also consider levels of selection) (Chapter 4).