Forager with intermittent rest: Better for survival?

TL;DR

This study investigates how intermittent resting behavior influences the survival of a forager performing a random walk on lattices, revealing that strategic rest can enhance longevity under certain conditions.

Contribution

Introduces the concept of intermittent rest in foraging models and analyzes its impact on survival, combining numerical simulations with analytical approaches.

Findings

Intermittent rest can significantly increase forager lifetime for certain probabilities p.

The forager's behavior shows departure from normal diffusion when p exceeds 0.5.

Analytical results in one dimension align with numerical simulations for p < 0.5.

Abstract

We study the fate of a forager who searches for food performing a random walk on lattices. The forager consumes the available food on the site it visits and leaves it depleted but can survive up to $S$ steps without food. We introduce the concept of intermittent rest in the dynamics which allows the forager to rest with probability $p$ upon consumption of food. The parameter $p$ significantly affects the lifetime of the forager, showing that the intermittent rest can be beneficial for the forager for chosen parameter values. The study of various other quantities reveals interesting scaling behavior with $p$ and also departure from usual diffusive behavior for $0.5 < p < 1$. In addition to numerical simulations, the problem has been studied with analytical approach in one dimension and the results up to $p < 0.5$ agree with the numerical ones to a large extent.