The early bird gets the worm: foraging strategies of wild songbirds lead to the early discovery of food sources.

ABSTRACT: Animals need to manage the combined risks of predation and starvation in order to survive. Theoretical and empirical studies have shown that individuals can reduce predation risk by delaying feeding (and hence fat storage) until late afternoon. However, little is known about how individuals manage the opposing pressures of resource uncertainty and predation risks. We suggest that individuals should follow a two-part strategy: prioritizing the discovery of food early in the day and exploiting the best patch late in the day. Using automated data loggers, we tested whether a temporal component exists in the discovery of novel foraging locations by individuals in a mixed-species foraging guild. We found that food deployed in the morning was discovered significantly more often than food deploye

SUBMITTER: Farine DR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3871345 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature