Abstract
Evidence for limited adaptive responsiveness to large-scale spatial variation of habitat quality
Highlights
Energy reserves in individual fish were best explained by the particular area they inhabited, whereas growth, population density, food quantity and interannual effects were of minor importance
ideal free distribution’ (IFD) is a conceptual model, which predicts that all individuals in particular areas and populations should have approximately the same realized fitness because they distribute themselves according to the available food resources (Fretwell & Lucas 1969, Kacelnik et al 1992, Sutherland 1996)
The assumptions of ideal behaviour and equal competitive abilities are simplifications, and while studies conducted on smaller scales, such as tank experiments or field studies from freshwater lakes, often show similar fitness across food patches, distribution patterns on large scales often show discrepancies compared to IFD predictions (Tregenza 1995, Sutherland 1996, Stamps 2009)
Summary
Habitat selection is an important aspect of foraging behaviour influencing many life-history traits, such as growth and maturation schedules as well as fecundity (Sutherland 1996, Stamps 2009, Morris 2011). On larger scales, animals are often not capable of correctly perceiving the true distribution of resources, because searching behaviour and extensive screening of the environment is too costly and may increase the risk of mortality (Sutherland 1996, Stamps 2009) This often implies that individuals would rather accept lower-quality habitats, and the resulting relative density in each particular habitat or food patch does not correctly reflect its intrinsic resource quality (Stamps 2009). By combining spatially resolved data of food composition and energy reserves, which was used to infer habitat quality and resource distribution, we investigated whether energy reserves and distribution patterns respond to environmental conditions
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