To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords: Optimality models: tools used to evaluate the costs and benefits of different organismal features, traits, and characteristics, including behavior, in the natural world. Optimal foraging theory: a behavioral ecology model that helps predict how an animal behaves when searching for food. Marginal value theorem: an optimality model that describes the strategy that maximizes gain per unit time in systems where resources, and thus rate of returns, decrease with time. Central place foraging: a model for analyzing how an organism traveling from a home base to a distant foraging location can maximize foraging rates. MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC ⁠https://neptunestudios.info⁠ If you like what we do, you can help us! - Become our patron: ⁠https://patreon.com/MinuteEarth⁠   - Buy our merch: ⁠http://dftba.com/minuteearth⁠   - Buy our book: ⁠https://minuteearth.com/books⁠ - Sign up to our newsletter: ⁠http://news.minuteearth.com⁠   - Share with your friends and family - Leave us a comment (we read them!) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices