Feeding ecology

Feeding ecology studies what animals eat and how they obtain food, including how diet and foraging relate to environments and other organisms.

Optimal foraging theory: A framework predicting how animals choose feeding strategies that maximize benefits relative to costs. It models how animals balance food rewards against search, handling, and risk.
Diet (biology): The kinds of food an organism consumes over a period of time. Diet is the central record of what an animal eats.
Stable isotope analysis in ecology: A method that uses isotope ratios in tissues to infer animals’ diets and trophic positions. Isotope signatures can reveal feeding histories that direct observation misses.
Generalist and specialist species: Species with broad resource use are generalists; those dependent on a narrow range are specialists. Their differing diet breadth changes vulnerability to shifts in food supply.
Functional response: The relationship between prey density and the rate at which a consumer eats prey. It describes how food abundance changes feeding rates.
Trophic level: An organism’s position in a food chain, based on its source of energy. Feeding links place animals at particular positions in food chains.
DNA metabarcoding: A method that identifies organisms in mixed samples by sequencing diagnostic DNA markers. It can identify prey from stomach contents, feces, or other diet samples.
Predation: An interaction in which one organism captures and consumes another organism. Predation is one specific feeding interaction within the broader study of animal diets.
Handling time: The time a predator spends pursuing, subduing, and consuming a food item. Handling time limits how many items a forager can consume.
Food web: A network of feeding relationships among organisms in an ecosystem. Food webs show how animal diets connect species.

Linked from 7 pages