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PATCH CHOICE AS A FUNCTION OF PROCUREMENT COST AND ENCOUNTER RATE
Author(s) -
Collier George,
Johnson Deanne F.,
Berman Justin
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
journal of the experimental analysis of behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1938-3711
pISSN - 0022-5002
DOI - 10.1901/jeab.1998.69-5
Subject(s) - foraging , total cost , meal , energy cost , average cost , procurement , computer science , toxicology , statistics , biology , ecology , mathematics , business , microeconomics , economics , food science , environmental economics , marketing
The effects of patch encounter rate on patch choice and meal patterns were studied in rats foraging in a laboratory environment offering two patch types that were encountered sequentially and randomly. The cost of procuring access to one patch was greater than the other. Patches were either encountered equally often or the high‐cost patch was encountered more frequently. As expected, rats exploited the low‐cost patch on almost 100% of encounters and exploited the high‐cost patch on a percentage of encounters that was inversely proportional to its cost. Meal size was the same at both patches. Surprisingly, when low‐cost patches were rare, the rats did not increase their use of high‐cost patches. This resulted in spending more time and energy searching for patches and a higher average cost per meal. The rats responded to this increased cost by reducing the frequency and increasing the size of meals at both patches and thereby limited total daily foraging cost and conserved total intake.