Our new article in Behavioral Ecology presents and tests theory for how animals decide whether and where to feed or hide, multiple times per day as changing light conditions affect both feeding rate and predation risk, in a population context with the individuals competing with each other for food and hiding places. The article presents four alternative ways to model this decision, using "State- and prediction-based theory" (see the 2020 Railsback and Harvey book, below), and then contrasts the alternative theories by their ability to reproduce a variety of observed patterns. This test is carried out in our new stream trout model (inSTREAM 7) that represents dawn, day, dusk, and night as explicit phases of the circadian cycle.

The article is: Railsback, S. F., B. C. Harvey, and D. Ayllón. in press. Contingent tradeoff decisions with feedbacks in cyclical environments: testing alternative theories. Behavioral Ecology. DOI: 10.1093/beheco/araa070