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Updated: Jul 25, 2026
04:43
Visualizing Visual Adaptation
Published on: April 24, 2017
Perceptual Ranges, Information Gathering, and Foraging Success in Dynamic Landscapes
The American Naturalist
|April 15, 2017
Summary
Organisms using nonlocal information to guide movement can double their resource concentration. Optimal foraging in dynamic landscapes requires balancing advective and diffusive movement with appropriate perceptual ranges.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Movement Ecology
- Behavioral Ecology
Background:
- Organismal movement and land-use patterns depend on information gathering about landscapes.
- Movement models traditionally focus on local cues, neglecting nonlocal information integration.
- Nonlocal information, gathered through various senses, guides movement beyond immediate surroundings.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how foragers can leverage nonlocal information for improved success in dynamic landscapes.
- To determine optimal perceptual ranges for foragers utilizing nonlocal information.
- To compare foraging efficiency with nonlocal versus purely local information.
Main Methods:
- Developed a continuous time/continuous space model.
- Varied parameters for random (diffusive) and resource-following (advective) movement.
- Analyzed the impact of different perceptual ranges on foraging success.
Main Results:
- Nonlocal information can increase forager concentration on resources up to twofold compared to local information.
- Optimal use of nonlocal information requires high advective and low diffusive movement.
- Nonlocal information is most beneficial in landscapes with sharp patch edges and transient resources.
Conclusions:
- Nonlocal information significantly enhances foraging efficiency in dynamic environments.
- The effectiveness of nonlocal information depends on the interplay between movement strategies and landscape characteristics.
- Movement models should incorporate nonlocal information processing for realistic ecological predictions.
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