Do
animals gather food efficiently -- that is, in a way that
maximizes their intake per unit of effort? This question has
long interested ecologists and has led to the formulation of
optimal foraging theory, which describes what sorts of
behavior should be observed if the foragers are feeding with
a minimum of wasted effort. For example, an animal defending
a feeding territory should make that territory large enough
to maximize its energy "profit." Territory size would be
optimal when there is the greatest possible difference
between the amount of energy that could be obtained from the
territory and the expenditure of energy required to gather
food from it and patrol and defend it. So much for what should
happen according to the theory. But does the theory
reasonably describe what actually goes on in nature? It has
proven quite difficult to test optimal foraging theory in
the field. Among other things, periodically catching an
animal to measure its weight gain (or loss) under different
conditions is almost certain to modify its behavior. But
biologists R Lynn Carpenter, David C. Paton, and Mark A.
Hixon found an ingenious way to test optimal foraging
theory, using Rufous Hummingbirds. These hummers establish
feeding territories during stops on their 2,000-mile
migration between their breeding grounds in the Pacific
Northwest and their wintering habitat in southern Mexico.
They zealously guard those territories, driving off
hawkmoths, butterflies, other hummers, and even bees that
might compete for the nectar. In addition, they deplete the
nectar resources around the periphery of their territories
as early in the day as they can, in order to out-compete
other nectar-sippers that might try to sneak a drink at the
territory edge. When half of the flowers in
a territory were covered with cloth so the birds could not
drain them, Carpenter and her coworkers found that the
resident hummer increased its territory size. This showed
that territoriality was tied to the availability of nectar,
and that the bird could in some way assess the amount of
nectar it controlled. Then, by substituting a sensitive
scale topped by a perch for the territory-holder's
traditional perch, they were able to measure the bird's
weight each time it alighted. The researchers found that the
hummers optimized their territory size by trial and error,
making it larger or smaller until their daily weight gain
was at a maximum. In this case of
migrant-territorial hummers, theory accurately predicted how
a bird behaves in nature. But when hummingbirds are not
migrating, things seem to get more complicated. For example,
hummingbird student William Calder of the University of
Arizona observed that, near the Rocky Mountain Biological
Laboratory in Colorado, territories were larger than usual
in 1986. That was a year when hummers were rare and, as a
result, nectar resources were superabundant. Apparently
males made their territories larger in order to increase
their chances of finding a mate. So theory that explains
behavior in one set of circumstances may have to be modified
before it accurately predicts what will happen in other
circumstances, as when reproductive and foraging strategies
cannot simultaneously be optimized. SEE: Territoriality;
Migration;
Hummingbirds,
Nectar, and Water. Copyright
® 1988 by Paul R. Ehrlich, David S. Dobkin, and Darryl
Wheye.