födosök

Födosök is the behavior by which organisms locate, assess, obtain, and consume food resources. In Swedish ecology, the term covers how animals and humans search for and handle food, including plant matter, animals, fungi, and carrion. The word derives from föda, food, and söka, to seek.

Foraging strategies include searching, patch use, handling time, and diet choice. Animals balance the costs of searching and traveling with the benefits of obtaining energy, often adjusting behavior to prey availability, risk of predation, and competition. Optimal foraging theory formalizes the idea that foragers maximize net energy gain per unit time, guiding expectations about when to stay in a patch or move on.

Examples span many groups: seed-eating birds that probe for seeds, grazing herbivores that select forage patches, carnivores that stalk or pursue, and detritivores that feed on decaying matter. Humans have practiced födosök throughout history as hunter-gatherers and, in some contexts, as foragers of wild foods, fungi, and seafood. The concept also encompasses foraging in urban or semi-natural environments where food resources appear in patches rather than being uniformly distributed.

Ecologically, födosök shapes and responds to resource distribution, seasonality, habitat structure, and social behavior. It influences fitness, migration, and interspecific interactions. Learning, memory, and sensory abilities play important roles in effective foraging, contributing to individual success and population dynamics.

Researchers study foraging with field observations, experiments, and models, contributing to understanding animal ecology, conservation planning, and agricultural pest management.