Foraging Ecology, the quest for food. First we will look at Foraging Ecology, the quest for food. Obtaining food is necessary for an organisms survival, growth and offspring reproduction. Without food, almost nothing else about an organisms relation to the world will matter for long. There are many different strategies for obtaining the necessary food.
Organisms generally follow two basic strategies, being either a generalist or a specialist.
A specialist will prefer only a single or few food types and a generalist will gladly eat many different food types. Both of the strategies have their advantages and disadvantages. A generalist may be surrounded by many different edible food, but like spinach, it may not be that good for the organisms, or it may take a long time to process the food, such as eating barnacles with their hard shells. There are three possible reasons why should there be so much diet variation. It may be to the advantage of an organisms with a preferred food type to switch to another food type if it becomes very abundant, but some specialists will not switch even when surrounded by lots of great food.