TY  - JOUR
T1  - Reproductive State Reshapes the Balance Between Risk and Reward During Insect Foraging Decisions
A1  - Lukas Weber
A1  - Sophie Janssen
A1  - Jonas Richter
A1  - Elena Fischer
JF  - Entomological Research Letters
JO  - Entomol Res Lett
SN  - 3108-639X
Y1  - 2022
VL  - 2
IS  - 1
DO  - 10.51847/wZLgUtqtyk
SP  - 91
EP  - 98
N2  - Insect foraging decisions are commonly interpreted through energetic demand, resource quality, and environmental risk, yet reproduction changes both what resources are worth and what costs can be tolerated. Treating reproductive state as a single scalar such as mating status or egg load obscures this conditionality. Evidence across insects shows that mating, nutritional state, egg limitation, resource quality, predation, sexual interference, and future reproductive opportunity can each alter behavior, but they are rarely integrated within the same decision architecture. This article proposes that reproductive state is a multidimensional decision variable that can reshape a qualitative risk–reward surface rather than uniformly increasing or decreasing risk-taking. Immediate resource value, remaining reproductive opportunity, and exposure cost are treated as analytically distinct currencies whose relative influence can change with sex, life stage, ovigeny, social context, and environmental history. The theory predicts conditional, potentially nonmonotonic responses: identical hazards or resources need not produce identical behavior in different reproductive states, and the same state proxy need not predict behavior across taxa. The framework is intended as a falsifiable synthesis, not a validated universal mechanism.
UR  - https://esvpub.com/article/reproductive-state-reshapes-the-balance-between-risk-and-reward-during-insect-foraging-decisions-zsyd7ig2d2hjybe
ER  -