| Title |
Leaving safety to visit a feeding site: is it optimal to hesitate while exposed?
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Royal Society Open Science, January 2017
|
| DOI | 10.1098/rsos.160910 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Sean A. Rands |
| Abstract |
Animals living in complex environments experience differing risks of predation depending upon their location within the landscape. An animal could reduce the risk it experiences by remaining in a refuge site, but it may need to emerge from its refuge and enter more dangerous sites for feeding and other activities. Here, I consider the actions of an animal choosing to travel a short distance between a safe refuge and a dangerous foraging site, such as a bird leaving cover to visit a feeder. Although much work has been conducted examining the choice between a refuge and a foraging site when faced with a trade-off between starvation and predation risk, the work presented here is the first to consider the travel behaviour between these locations. Using state-dependent stochastic dynamic programming, I illustrate that there are several forms of optimal behaviour that can emerge. In some situations, the animal should choose to travel without stopping between sites, but in other cases, it is optimal for the animal to travel hesitantly towards the food, and to stop its travel at a point before it reaches the refuge. I discuss how this hesitant 'dawdling' behaviour may be optimal, and suggest further work to test these predictions. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 10 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 7 | 70% |
| Unknown | 3 | 30% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 5 | 50% |
| Scientists | 4 | 40% |
| Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 1 | 10% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 18 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 18 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Bachelor | 4 | 22% |
| Researcher | 3 | 17% |
| Professor | 2 | 11% |
| Professor > Associate Professor | 2 | 11% |
| Student > Master | 2 | 11% |
| Other | 3 | 17% |
| Unknown | 2 | 11% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 6 | 33% |
| Environmental Science | 3 | 17% |
| Psychology | 3 | 17% |
| Nursing and Health Professions | 1 | 6% |
| Unspecified | 1 | 6% |
| Other | 1 | 6% |
| Unknown | 3 | 17% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 5. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 14 January 2017.
All research outputs
#6,082,185
of 22,931,367 outputs
Outputs from Royal Society Open Science
#2,223
of 4,083 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#113,528
of 420,713 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Royal Society Open Science
#73
of 110 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,931,367 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 73rd percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 4,083 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 50.1. This one is in the 45th percentile – i.e., 45% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 110 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 33rd percentile – i.e., 33% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.