Human adaptation and energetic efficiency

A lack of consensus on the general adaptive significance of energetic efficiency can be shown to exist in ecology and anthropology. After briefly reviewing key studies in optimal foraging theory and ecological anthropology, a model is presented which includes the following elements: (1) an equation of adaptive success with reproductive fitness, within an optimality framework; (2) a definition of energy limitation consistent with this framework; (3) a distinction between efficiency of energy capture and efficiency of energy use in achieving other goals; (4) a multiple definition of energetic efficiency that distinguishes purely energetic measures (output/input) from rate measures (energy captured per unit time); (5) the inclusion of time budgeting as a primary adaptive constraint; (6) a quantitative demonstration that increased output/input ratios do not consistently predict an increase in net energy captured, and are poor measures where time is a constraint. The general conclusion is that where energy is limiting, increased efficiency in the rate of energy capture will be adaptive because more net energy will be made available; where energy is not limiting, an increased net capture rate may still confer increased adaptive success, since time and labor energy are freed from energy-capture activities and can be devoted to achieving other adaptive goals. But while energetic efficiency, properly defined, is shown to have general adaptive significance in all cases where time or energy are constraints, considerations of adaptive optimality preclude the general equation of energetic efficiency and adaptive success.

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