SPATIAL ORGANIZATION

AND MOVEMENTS
Spatial concepts
Individual distance

Home range - area used during the course

of normal activities

Territory - area of exclusive use maintained by

active defense
Benefits – exclusive use of resources
Costs – time, energy, injury

“Economic defensibility”
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AND MOVEMENTS
Graphical patterns

Non overlap – (territory)

common yellowthroat

Partial overlap – (“core area” territory)

golden-mantled ground squirrel

Complete overlap – (social)

elk
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Social behavior
Animal groupings
Aggregation – temporary assemblage
due to external stimulus
Social group – persistent group
maintained by mutual attraction
colony – social group at a fixed resource
Benefits of sociality: reduced predation,
food acquisition, energetics
Costs of sociality: competition, disease,
reproductive interference
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AND MOVEMENTS
Evolution of social behavior
“Geometry for the selfish herd”
Persistent aggregations
Offspring retention – family groups
Facultative sociality
Mating systems
Monogamy – many birds, some mammals
Polygyny – most mammals, some birds
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Home range affinity – “familiarity”
Movements
Exploratory excursion – brief, round-trip
movement from home range
Migration – usually annual, round-trip shift in home range
Whooping crane
Spectacled eider
California tiger salamander
Log 2%
Soil crevice 5%
Gopher burrow 10%
Squirrel burrow 83%
Pronghorn
Dispersal – permanent, one-way move away
from home range
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Philopatry vs dispersal
Costs of dispersal – predation, starvation,
no suitable habitat
Costs of philopatry – competition for resources,
competition for mates, inbreeding

Evolution of dispersal – ability to assess prospects

for success – use cues
Yellow-bellied marmots:
Survival cost of dispersal 16%
Philopatry: cost of inbreeding 10%
Philopatry: cost of lost reproduction 20%

Cues – density, aggression, opposite-sex parent

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AND MOVEMENTS
Sex-bias in dispersal tendency
Mammals: male-biased
Birds: female-biased
however, lots of exceptions
Dispersal direction
Dispersal distance
California mouse
Yellow-bellied marmot
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AND MOVEMENTS
Long distance dispersal – marmots
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AND MOVEMENTS
Long distance dispersal – mountain lions