Deep-sea foraging pathways: an analysis of randomness and resource exploitation
The foraging paradigm of trace fossil theory has historically accorded random behavior to non-food-limited deposit-feeders and non-random behavior to food-limited feeders. A series of randomness measures derived from empirical modeling, simulation modeling, stochastic modeling and probability theory...
| Published in: | Paleobiology |
|---|---|
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
1979
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0094837300006400 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0094837300006400 |
| Summary: | The foraging paradigm of trace fossil theory has historically accorded random behavior to non-food-limited deposit-feeders and non-random behavior to food-limited feeders. A series of randomness measures derived from empirical modeling, simulation modeling, stochastic modeling and probability theory applied to foraging patterns observed in deep-sea bottom photographs from the Arctic and Antarctic yielded a behavioral continuum of increasing non-randomness. A linear regression of trace positions along the continuum to bathymetric data did not substantiate the optimal foraging efficiency-depth dependence model of trace fossil theory, except that all traces exhibited a greater optimization than that of simulated random foraging. It is hypothesized that optimization as evidenced by non-random foraging strategies represents maximization of the cost/benefit ratio of resource exploitation to risk of predation and that individual foraging patterns reflect an exploration response to the morphometry of a patchily distributed food resource. Differential predation and competition may account for the co-occurrence of random and non-random strategies within the same bathymetric zone. |
|---|