Variation of food source handling time and the effects on foraging behavior of the Eastern Chipmunk, Tamias striatus.

Abstract

The optimal foraging theory predicts that a forager will only pursue a food source if the benefit of eating that food source will outweigh the cost of obtaining it. We studied eastern chipmunks, Tamias striatus, to see whether they will decrease their visits to a feeder containing low handling time food as the feeder was moved further from their burrow. We predicted that as the distance to the feeder increased the frequencies of visits to the feeder would decrease. We did not observe a significant correlation between distance to the food source and visitation frequency. Our findings suggest that the chipmunks did not perceive a risk great enough to deter them from visiting the further, lower handling time feeder.