Building the bridge between animal movement and population dynamics

Abstract

While the mechanistic links between animal movement and population dynamics are ecologically obvious, it is much less clear when knowledge of animal movement is a prerequisite for understanding and predicting population dynamics. GPS and other technologies enable detailed tracking of animal location concurrently with acquisition of landscape data and information on individual physiology. These tools can be used to refine our understanding of the mechanistic links between behaviour and individual condition through 'spatially informed' movement models where time allocation to different behaviours affects individual survival and reproduction. For some species, socially informed models that address the movements and average fitness of differently sized groups and how they are affected by fission -fusion processes at relevant temporal scales are required. Furthermore, as most animals revisit some places and avoid others based on their previous experiences, we foresee the incorporation of long-term memory and intention in movement models. The way animals move has important consequences for the degree of mixing that we expect to find both within a population and between individuals of different species. The mixing rate dictates the level of detail required by models to capture the influence of heterogeneity and the dynamics of intra-and interspecific interaction.

Stigmergy, collective actions, and animal social spacing

“…A useful tool to characterize the emerging spatiotemporal pattern of the population is the encounter rate of mobile animals, an instrument of broad ecological applicability (19). Most encounter estimates have relied upon basic animal movement models, in which displacement is ballistic and individuals are completely independent, which amounts to considering animals as "ideal gas" particles.…”

Foraging theory upscaled: the behavioural ecology of herbivore movement

“…A wider sample of herbivore species needs to be encompassed to establish the broader generality of the patterns shown, including influences of predators besides wolves. Links between movement behaviour and population performance still need consolidation (but see Morales et al 2010). Our contribution has outlined how concepts of adaptive behaviour in response to changing environments could help establish a cohesive scientific framework for movement ecology.…”

Risky movement increases the rate of range expansion

“…Importantly, the key resultgreater survival of individuals that rapidly orient towards a potential destination-is unaffected by the way the bias is modelled. Whereas numerous previous studies have focused on how individual survival probabilities relate to interpatch movement rules [12,15,34], few have considered the consequences of movement rules for spatial population dynamics [33]. This may be in part because high-quality empirical data on animal movements have only recently become available [35], so our ability to empirically address the question of movement rules is in its infancy [36].…”