Meal Size Effects on Antipredator Behavior of Hatchling Trinket Snakes, Elaphe helena

Foraging and feeding requirements shape ecologic and evolutionary patterns for many predatory organisms. The idea that organisms maximize energy intake during foraging is one of the major assumptions of foraging theories (Schoener 1971; Pyke et al. 1977). From recent studies (for review see Brown & Kotler 2004) it is apparent that foraging decisions are not strictly related to meal size but that the relationships between foraging behavior, optimal meal size, and predator avoidance are all important for understanding decision-making processes and predator–prey interactions. Studies focusing on these complex relationships have documented the various effects of predator presence on foraging behavior (Sih 1980,1992; Ydenberg 1998) and have shown that organisms will forage in less rewarding places when predatory risks are high (Sih 1980; Winterrowd & Devenport 2004). These studies further reveal that although hunger is an internal state that drives an organism to forage, many animals exhibit Correspondence Rita S. Mehta, Department of Biology, University of Texas, Tyler, TX, USA. E-mail: [email protected]