Predators are also relatively fastidious in food choices. They prefer foods with more nutritional value than foods high in calories.
A new study shows that insectivores, when given a choice of food, choose the diet that maximizes their fertility.
“Contrary to speculation, carnivores actually balance their diets and show their nutritional wisdom,” said Stephen Simpson, professor of biology at the University of Sydney and co-author of the study.
“Although we have demonstrated this property in the past in spiders, carnivorous beetles, fish, weasels and cats, this is the first study to show the reasons for the adaptability and the benefits of choosing the food, ”Simpson said.
These results are based on a study of a ground beetle scientifically known as Anchomenus dorsalis. It is a garden insect that eats slugs, aphids, caterpillars, beetle larvae and ants.
Researchers from the University of Sydney (Australia), the University of Exeter and Oxford (United Kingdom), the University of Aarhus (Denmark) and Massey University (New Zealand) collected female beetles from the wild and divided them into two groups in the lab.
A group of insects were given food choices – some were high in protein and some were high in fat. The rest of the group had no food options, some of whom were given only foods high in protein and the rest were given foods high in fat.
Some forage beetles absorb ratios of protein and fat that optimize their fertility to produce healthy eggs. These insects lay more eggs than others without a choice of food.
Fussy foods have important implications for predator predation and their feeding habits in specific environments, researchers say.
