The marginal value theorem is an optimality model in behavioral ecology describing how a forager should decide when to leave a patch of resources for another, in an environment where patches are separated by travel time during which no resources can be gathered. It predicts that an optimally foraging individual should depart a patch once its rate of resource intake there falls to the average rate available across the whole environment, and the model has also been applied to other situations involving diminishing returns.
Facts
StatementThe predator should leave the patch it is presently in when the marginal capture rate in the patch drops to the average capture rate for the habitat. 1 Classification
Statement FormCharacterization Theorem 1 Connections
Has Statement Form
Entity-backed identity for the statement-form enum value this theorem already carries, resolved to a mathematics concept by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The statement-form fact itself stays on the theorem unchanged.
Sources
1. Marginal value theorem - Wikipedia
Lead section
The predator should leave the patch it is presently in when the marginal capture rate in the patch drops to the average capture rate for the habitat.
Lead paragraph
first proposed by Eric Charnov in 1976
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