Foraging Choosing Prey Size: A Comparison of Static and Dynamic Foraging Models for Predicting Prey Choice by Fish

Foraging theory has developed extensively since the first papers by MacArthur and Pianka (1966) and Emlen (1966). An historical review of foraging theory is provided in Schoener (1987) which concentrates mostly on models that do not account for changes in motivation with time (static state-independent models). The introduction of tractable dynamic models by Mangel and Clark (1986, 1988) and by McNamara and Houston (1986, 1988) has made it possible to model decision making that depends on the internal state of the animal (state-dependent models). These models capture more of the behaviour, have more parameters but are less general than analytic static models.