View source for Optimal foraging theory

'''Optimal foraging theory''' (OFT) is the branch of [[behavioral ecology]] that models foraging decisions as optimization problems, predicting that organisms will behave in ways that maximize their net energy intake per unit time. The foundational result is the [[marginal value theorem]]: a forager should leave a food patch when the instantaneous rate of energy gain in that patch drops to the average rate across all available patches. Deviations from this prediction reveal hidden constraints — predation risk, [[prey choice model|prey handling costs]], cognitive limits — that selection has not yet overcome.

OFT treats behavior as a solution to an economic problem whose currency is fitness. The theory has been extended from individual foragers to social groups, where information sharing and scrounging strategies create game-theoretic complications that the original formulation did not capture.

[[Category:Evolution]] [[Category:Systems]]