The forager problem

Abstract

The forager problem, often referred to as the optimal foraging problem, is a concept from behavioural ecology that seeks to understand the decision-making process of entities searching for resources (hereafter referred to as foragers). In general, it addresses the strategies foragers use to maximize the resource acquisition during the foraging process. Many studies suggest that animals searching for randomly distributed food sources display Lévy flight behaviour. This work thus focuses on laying down the mathematical framework needed to approach this problem and later use it, along with computer simulations, to verify some results related to this problem.