Food matters.Rodent population sizes jump following flushes of seeds.Fear matters.Rodent activity responds strongly to moon phases,vegetation cover and the composition of predators.Rodents manifest non-lethal effects of predators through habitat selection,patch use behaviors,and apprehension.Foraging theory provides an ideal conceptual framework for understanding food and safety tradeoffs; and rodents have been central to inspiring and testing ideas of patch use and habitat selection.Rodents are especially amenable to measuring patch use behaviors.A simple plastic tray filled with seeds or nuts mixed into a substrate such as sand allows one to probe the rodents perceptions of foods,risk and habitat quality.The value of such food patches increases when combined with census data,camera traps or radio frequency identification technologies.Here,we explore this lockstep between theory and methodology.White-footed mice inhabiting a tallgrass prairie reveal their seed preferences for native vegetation.Food-safety tradeoffs augment biodiversity in squirrel communities,and communities of desert rodents.As can be seen in striped mice of South Africa,spatial variability in predation risk and food availability define habitat suitability for it and its predator the genet.Finally,we examine fear,foraging and coexistence using common garden experiments that compare two species of Middle Eastern gerbils and two species of North American Heteromyid rodents as they face risk from the Middle Eastern horned viper and the North American sidewinder rattlesnake.Throughout,foraging ecology allows us to use individual behaviors to understand and manage populations and communities.