Scale-free foraging by primates emerges from their interaction with a complex environment.
Scale-free foraging patterns are widespread among animals. These may be the outcome of an optimal searching strategy to find scarce, randomly distributed resources, but a less explored alternative is that this behaviour may result from the interaction of foraging animals with a particular distribution of resources. We introduce a simple foraging model where individual primates follow mental maps and choose their displacements according to a maximum efficiency criterion, in a spatially disordered environment containing many trees with a heterogeneous size distribution. We show that a particular tree-size frequency distribution induces non-Gaussian movement patterns with multiple spatial scales (Lévy walks). These results are consistent with field observations of tree-size variation and spider monkey (Ateles geoffroyi) foraging patterns. We discuss the consequences that our results may have for the patterns of seed dispersal by foraging primates.
Boyer
Denis
D
Departamento de Sistemas Complejos, Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México DF.
Ramos-Fernández
Gabriel
G
Miramontes
Octavio
O
Mateos
José L
JL
Cocho
Germinal
G
Larralde
Hernán
H
Ramos
Humberto
H
Rojas
Fernando
F
D000818:Animals; D002427:Cebidae / Q000502:physiology*; D017753:Ecosystem; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D006702:Homing Behavior; D008954:Models, Biological; D011323:Primates / Q000502:physiology