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 is so, why?

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

5. What are the advantages of group foraging? What are the costs?