Optimality model
In biology, optimality models are a tool used to evaluate the costs and benefits of different organismal features, traits, and characteristics, including behavior, in the natural world.
It allows for the calculation and visualization of the costs and benefits that influence the outcome of a decision, and contributes to an understanding of adaptations.
Optimality occurs at the point in which the difference between benefits and costs for obtaining a currency via a particular behavior is maximized.
For example, given X amount of time traveling, after catching one bug, would it be better for a bird to continue foraging or to quickly return to its nest to feed chicks?
A test of the predictions generated by the optimality model can be performed to determine which currency the organism maximizes at any given time.
[6] Over recent decades, experiments observed biophysical optimality in chemosensing,[7][8][9][10][11] mechanosensing,[12][13][14] and light sensing.
[17] The benefit in this model is the success rate of cracking the whelk's shell, while the primary cost is the energy spent flying.
Geoff Parker predicted that an optimality model comparing these two behaviors would be affected by the travel time between two patches.
[18] For example, short distances between cowpats should widen the pool of available mates in a specific geographic location.
Thus at some point, it benefits them to stop expending extra energy to find additional food and return to their nests instead.
A graph of this phenomenon, called a loading curve, compares foraging time to the number of prey captured.
It is important that these starlings spend extra time at the foraging ground because it takes a lot of energy to travel back and forth from its nest.
Since these starlings have a shorter distance to travel, they do not need to put as much energy into searching for leatherjackets because it is easier for them to return to the foraging ground.
[20][21] The degree of optimization in response to natural selection depends on the rate at which genetic structure changes, the amount of additive variance present at the time of selection, gene flow, rate of environmental change, and random effects such as genetic drift.
Complementary strategies to describing and analyzing organism behaviour include phylogenetic comparative methods and quantitative genetics.
