The cost of irregular meals

摘要

In an ideal world, food supplies would be regular and frequent, so organisms could invest in just the right amount of capacity for digestion (which comes at a cost). But faced with unpredictable supplies, organisms must invest in spare digestive capacity, so that when food is available they can process it. Jonathan Armstrong and Daniel Schindler have modelled the dynamics of food supply and investment in digestion, and collected data on the actual digestive capacities of 38 fish species (including striped bass, pictured).