The influence of food supply on foraging behaviour in a desert spider

Oecologia ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 105 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Lubin ◽  
J. Henschel
2005 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamra F. Chapman ◽  
David C. Paton

The endangered Kangaroo Island glossy black-cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus lathami halmaturinus) relies entirely on the seeds of the drooping sheoak (Allocasuarina verticillata) for food. The time budget of the glossy black-cockatoos and their foraging behaviour was recorded to provide an indication of whether their food supply was likely to be limiting. The foraging behaviour of non-breeding and breeding cockatoos was also compared to record the strategy they used to collect the additional energy needed to raise young. Glossy black-cockatoos spent a relatively small proportion of their time foraging, suggesting that the food supply was abundant in the habitats used for feeding. Non-breeding birds spent only 26% of their time feeding and breeding birds spent only 36% of their time feeding. The cockatoos spent 0.4% of their time flying, foraged in a mean of only five trees per day and harvested cones in no more than five bouts per tree. This shows that the cockatoos made few movements between drooping sheoaks and within the canopy of the sheoaks when foraging. When breeding, the cockatoos spent significantly more time per day foraging, cropped cones in significantly more bouts per tree and harvested significantly more cones per tree than non-breeding birds. This shows that breeding birds increased their energy intake without greatly increasing movement between trees. The small number of movements made by glossy black-cockatoos when foraging on Kangaroo Island reflects the abundance of food trees and may be a strategy to reduce the risk of predation.


Oikos ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel W. Anderson ◽  
Franklin Gress ◽  
Kenneth F. Mais

Ecology ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 1009-1014 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Ronald Pulliam ◽  
John B. Dunning

2005 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 280-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
K E Hodges ◽  
A R.E Sinclair

If snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus Erxleben, 1777) change their foraging behaviour through the population cycle as food supply and predation pressure change, these shifts could contribute to their population cycles by affecting survival and reproduction. We examined whether hares change their foraging movements and browse site selection in response to manipulations of food addition and predator reduction during a cyclic low phase. Snowshoe hares on sites with supplemental rabbit chow ate fewer species per site and preferred to browse in slightly denser cover than unfed hares. Differences in foraging behaviour were linked to season and site characteristics. Snowshoe hares moved similar distances and spent similar amounts of time per browse site in the presence and absence of terrestrial predators. Hares protected from predators used slightly more browse sites in thick cover, but this pattern was partially due to differences in availability. The absence of terrestrial predators had little effect on snowshoe hare foraging behaviour; instead, browse distribution patterns explained most of the behavioural variation. Thus, the predicted patterns in response to the manipulations did not occur, and our results challenge the idea that changes in snowshoe hare foraging behaviour contribute to their cyclic dynamics.


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