SALTATORY SEARCH - A THEORETICAL-ANALYSIS

Many animals search in a saltatory fashion: they move forward, pause b riefly, and move forward again. Although many optimal-foraging models have been developed, most do not address how an animal searches for fo od. We view search strategies as ''time-distance'' functions to allow not only for the possibility of oscillations in body speed, as implied by saltatory search, but other movement patterns as well, including c ruise search. The key feature of our models is distinguishing between the body position and the scan position (where the forager is looking) . We see the varying movement of saltatory search as a consequence of the curvature in the functions that relate body speed to benefits (Jen sen's inequality).