Exploration of optimal giving-up time in uncertain environment: a sit-and-wait forager

I address variability of giving-up time of a sit-and-wait forager in a stochastic environment. Behavioral variability is considered as an essential unavoidable feature of animals. In a stochastic environment, this unavoidable behavioral variability will increase. Thus, the existence of some behavioral variation would be considered to be a constraint. I analyse the expected long-term reward rate for a model of patch exploitation by a sit-and-wait forager as a function of giving-up time (GUT) given environmental stochasticity and a base behavioral variability. While the animal is learning about the environment, a mixed strategy is favored and thus, more variability is added to behavior. I claim that it is important to study not only the final optimal strategy but also the strategy used during the exploration process. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.