The Fear Equation

where μ is (perceived) predation risk, F is current fitness, and ∂F / ∂e is the marginal fitness gain from acquiring more energy from foraging.

What does it mean? Technically speaking, the equation represents the marginal rate of substitution of safety for food. It says that when the environment is risky (high rates of predation), when current fitness is high (e.g., if the animal is well fed), and when the marginal gain of more food is low, then one should be very risk averse, i.e., feel “fear”.

Where does it come from? It originates from Joel Brown’s seminal paper (Brown 1988) formulating the relationship between patch use, foraging rate and predation risk.

Importance: This idea has subsequently been much explored when studying foraging ecology, habitat selection, and the mechanisms of coexistence between competitors and predators and their prey. It elegantly shows how different fitness “currencies” (here, food and safety) can be translated into each other. This trick is often necessary when putting together reliable and realistic fitness functions for many problems in evolutionary ecology. It also determines the “landscape of fear” prey populations experience and it can be shown that this effect on the population can be greater than the actual killing of prey individuals. It also nicely explains the “Stalingrad effect”, i.e., the fearless behavior of the inhabitants of the city during the WWII battle under severe risk. They had with very low current “fitness” and extremely high marginal “fitness“ gain from some food. Think about similar situations yourselves!

Per Lundberg

Literature:

Brown, J.S. 1988. Patch use as an indicator of habitat preference, predation risk, and competition. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 22: 37-47.

Brown, J. S. 1992. Patch use under predation risk: I. Models and predictions. Ann. Zool. Fennici 29:301-309.

Brown, J. S. & Kotler, B. P. 2004. Hazardous duty pay and the foraging cost of predation. Ecol. Lett. 7: 999-1014.