What are generalist and specialist foraging strategies, and how do they compare to each other? Also can anyone Explain the importance of environmental grain and under what situation(s) a single environment may be both coarse-grained and fine-grained. If you can help thanks.
Since this is not my area of expertise, I searched Google under the key words "foraging strategies" and "environmental grain" to get these possible sources:
http://www.tiem.utk.edu/~gross/bioed/bealsmodules/optimal.html
http://www.amjbot.org/cgi/content/full/92/1/101
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:f1EPul6UUKsJ:www.sase.org/conf2005/papers/peli-bruggeman.pdf+%22environmental+grain%22&hl=en&client=safari
I hope this helps. Thanks for asking.
hey-I'm trying to answer the same question (second one). I got this defintion of environmental grain-----
An ecological term for the effect of spatial variation, or patchiness, relative to the size and behavior of an organism.---
, but i can't figure out what situations would a single environment be both coarse and fine grained. If you can please let me know if you receive any help. Thank you!
I've been stuck on the same question. Between the answers here and other stuff I found myself, I've managed to BS some sort of answer XP
from one site I got:
"(19) Graininess (supplemental discussion, no need to memorize)
(a) Another way of looking at ecology is in terms of environmental and temporal grain
(b) Environmental grain refers to the patchiness of an environment, and the patchiness of an environment is perceived differently by different organisms
(c) A coarsely grained environment has patches which are large enough that they may be distinguished
(d) A finely grained environment has patches which are so small that they may not be readily distinguished, and an "organism may not even behave as though patches exist," but what is fine-grained to one (typically larger) organism may by coarse-grained to another (typically smaller) organism
(e) Organisms tend to congregate within coarsely grained patches to which they are best adapted
(f) Temporal variation may also be finely or coarsely grained depending, for example, on the life span of the experiencing organism, where short term variations (finely grained) are those which occur over a short span of an organism's life while long term variation (coarsely grained) occur over a substantial fraction of an organism's life
(g) [fine-grained environment, coarse-grained environment (Google Search)] [index]"
so maybe it means that while an environment is fine-grained to one organism, it's coarse-grained to a smaller organism? (it's probably not quite a correct answer, but it's better than the blank space I had before >_<)
Hey, can u help me understand and answer this question please!
What are the type of population density measure and how each may be determined?
Airkon
1 answer