DOI 10.1007/s00285-013-0734-y Mathematical Biology How optimal foragers should respond to habitat changes: a reanalysis of the Marginal Value Theorem

© The Author(s) 2013. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract The Marginal Value Theorem (MVT) is a cornerstone of biological theory. It connects the quality and distribution of patches in a fragmented habitat to the optimal time an individual should spend exploiting them, and thus its optimal rate of move-ment. However, predictions regarding how habitat alterations should impact optimal strategies have remained elusive, with heavy reliance on graphical arguments. Here we derive the sensitivity of realized fitness and optimal residence times to general habitat attributes, for homogeneous and heterogeneous habitats, retaining the level of gen-erality of the MVT. We provide new predictions on how altering travel times, patch qualities and/or relative abundances should affect optimal strategies, and study the consequences of habitat heterogeneity. We show that knowledge of average character-istics is in general not sufficient to predict the change in the average rate of movement. V. Calcagno (B) · L. Mailleret · É. Wajnber