Brown Joel S, Alkon Philip U
Mitrani Center for Desert Ecology, Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sede Boqer Campus, 84993, Israel.
Oecologia. 1990 Jul;83(4):512-518. doi: 10.1007/BF00317202.
We established depletable, artificial food patches in three habitats used by Indian crested porcupines (Hystrix indica) in a desert biome, and measured the number of food items remaining (i.e., "giving up density"=GUD) following nightly foraging bouts. Porcupines discriminated between resource types (peanuts vs. garbanzo beans), and exhibited clear habitat preferences in the face of uniform resource availability in time and space. Lowest GUD's (=lowest foraging costs) were in the habitat of densest cover, and during dark (little or no moon) nights. The results indicated a high sensitivity to predation risk. Crested porcupines behaved as expected of optimal foragers, and appear to be excellent subjects for further field experiments using the GUD approach.
我们在沙漠生物群落中印度冠豪猪（Hystrix indica）使用的三种栖息地建立了可耗尽的人工食物斑块，并测量了夜间觅食活动后剩余的食物数量（即“放弃密度”=GUD）。豪猪能够区分资源类型（花生与鹰嘴豆），并且在时间和空间上资源可利用性一致的情况下表现出明显的栖息地偏好。最低的GUD（=最低觅食成本）出现在植被最茂密的栖息地以及黑暗（几乎没有月光）的夜晚。结果表明其对捕食风险高度敏感。冠豪猪的行为符合最佳觅食者的预期，似乎是使用GUD方法进行进一步野外实验的理想对象。
