Practice question

Long handling time reduces a predator’s feeding efficiency because time spent pursuing, subduing, processing, or digesting one prey item is unavailable for locating and consuming others. Profitability falls as E/h decreases, even if the prey contains substantial energy. At high prey density, handling can become the limiting step and produce a saturating Holling type II functional response: encounter opportunities increase, but consumption approaches a maximum of roughly one item per handling-time unit. Camouflage usually improves approach success for the predator, group hunting can increase capture probability or permit larger prey, and high prey density generally raises encounters until saturation. Efficiency should be defined using the relevant currency—energy per time, prey killed per effort, or reproductive gain—because group hunting also requires sharing food and camouflage may have costs. Nevertheless, with other variables held constant, increasing handling time lowers maximum intake rate and narrows the circumstances under which that prey is profitable. The effect links individual foraging decisions to population-level predator responses.