Experience-based optimal foraging on planktonic prey in Baikal seals.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Understanding how predatory animals efficiently locate prey with limited knowledge of its location is challenging. Optimal foraging theory suggests that animals improve their food intake through experience-based adjustments of search patterns. For example, animals feeding on clustered prey may repeatedly search successful areas and move farther away when unsuccessful (the 'win-stay, lose-shift' strategy). A related concept, area-restricted search, predicts that animals initially search broadly and then switch to a more localized, tortuous search upon finding clustered prey. However, few studies have empirically supported these predictions for large aquatic predators due to difficulties in recording their foraging success on known prey species.

Methods

We used biol

SUBMITTER: Watanabe YY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12487204 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature