Modeling The MVT
As animals forage in patchy systems, they balance resource intake, traveling time, and foraging time. Resource intake within a patch diminishes with time, as shown by the solid curve in the graph to the right. The curve follows this pattern because resource intake is initially very fast, but slows as the resource is depleted. Traveling time is shown by the distance from the leftmost vertical dotted line to the y-axis. Optimal foraging time is modeled by connecting this point on the x-axis tangentially to the resource intake curve. Doing so maximizes the ratio between resource intake and time spent foraging and traveling.
At the extremes of the loading curve, animals spend too much time traveling for a small payoff, or they search too long for an ineffective load. The MVT identifies the best possible intermediate between these extremes.
Read more about this topic: Marginal Value Theorem
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