Are there general mechanisms of animal home range behaviour? A review and prospects for future research

Abstract

Home range behaviour is a common pattern of space use, having fundamental consequences for ecological processes. However, a general mechanistic explanation is still lacking. Research is split into three separate areas of inquiry -movement models based on random walks, individual-based models based on optimal foraging theory, and a statistical modelling approach -which have developed without much productive contact. Here we review recent advances in modelling home range behaviour, focusing particularly on the problem of identifying mechanisms that lead to the emergence of stable home ranges from unbounded movement paths. We discuss the issue of spatiotemporal scale, which is rarely considered in modelling studies, as well as highlighting the need to consider more closely the dynamical nature of home ranges. Recent methodological and theoretical advances may soon lead to a unified approach, however, conceptually unifying our understanding of linkages among home range behaviour and ecological or evolutionary processes.

Stigmergy, collective actions, and animal social spacing

“…Recent studies (3,4) advocate the need to develop a general framework to explain the broad spectrum of spacing behavior we observe: from one extreme condition, with full territorial exclusion, to an intermediate situation, with overlapping home ranges, to the other extreme, with free-ranging animals that fully share the available space. Animals that deposit marks over the terrain represent a model animal system to develop such a framework.…”

Home ranges, habitat and body mass: simple correlates of home range size in ungulates

“…A fundamental characteristic of an individual's movement pattern is its home range [13]. In one of the first attempts to relate home range to spatial scale of animal movement, it was defined as 'that area traversed by the individual in its normal activities of food gathering, mating, and caring for the young' [14].…”

The High Cost of Motherhood: End-Lactation Syndrome in Southern Sea Otters (Enhydra Lutris Nereis) on the Central California Coast, Usa

“…At the most basic level, relocating tagged individuals at some regular time interval and measuring the net distance they have moved away from their location at the previous interval (their "net linear displacement", NLD), provides the fundamental data required for virtually all spatial models of population growth, disease dynamics, or demographic connectivity among habitat patches. For example, diffusion models and other so-called "Eulerian" spatial models can be parameterized from the NLD values of many individuals (from which estimates dispersal distance probability distributions) and used to estimate the rate at which populations will recover, invade, or otherwise spread into new habitat (Hastings 1996, Kot et al 1996, Borger et al 2008. More advanced models require not only the average NLD per unit time, but also information on the frequency distribution of this statistic, and how it varies between different classes of individuals within the population (Neubert et al 1995, Shigesada et al 1995.…”

“…In contrast to population-level Eulerian models, "Lagrangian" models, such as random-walk models, focus on individual-level movement behavior over short, discrete time steps (Borger et al 2008). Measurement of sequential step lengths and turning angles provides the data needed to parameterize correlated random walk models (CRW), which allow for a more mechanistic understanding of animal dispersal (Turchin 1998).…”