Optimal Foraging

This chapter is a refresher on the prey model of classic optimal foraging theory through the lens of this book. I build on the multi-species functional response, the selection ideas, and the parameter breakdown presented in the preceding chapters to argue for how optimal foraging might arise. I rederive the models and suggest that optimal foraging theory may still be relevant to understanding predator–prey interactions, in particular in the context of multi-species functional responses. I also address the possibility that predators mostly have broad diets because they experience low prey abundances most of the time in nature.