Abstract
A general model is developed to predict diet selection when digestive capacity is limited and when food items differ in digestibility and digestive turnover time. Under these conditions, in order to maximize the rate of energy acquisition, animals should maximize digestive rate, by selecting food with high digestibility and rapid passage through the digestive tract. They should spend as much time as they have available to search for this food. These and other predictions differ from those of the widely used Contingency Model, which maximizes the rate of ingestion of energy. Many experiments in the literature have not discriminated between predictions of these two models. Moreover, clarification of the conditions under which these two general models apply leads to a new perspective on the diversity of foraging behavior in animals.
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