How do animal territories form and change? Lessons from 20 years of
mechanistic modelling |
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Authors: | Jonathan R Potts Mark A Lewis |
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Institution: | 1.Department of Mathematical and Statistical
Sciences, Centre for Mathematical Biology, University of
Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6G 2G1;2.Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6G 2G1 |
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Abstract: | Territory formation is ubiquitous throughout the animal kingdom. At the individual
level, various behaviours attempt to exclude conspecifics from regions of space. At
the population level, animals often segregate into distinct territorial areas.
Consequently, it should be possible to derive territorial patterns from the
underlying behavioural processes of animal movements and interactions. Such
derivations are an important element in the development of an ecological theory that
can predict the effects of changing conditions on territorial populations. Here, we
review the approaches developed over the past 20 years or so, which go under the
umbrella of ‘mechanistic territorial models’. We detail the two main
strands to this research: partial differential equations and individual-based
approaches, showing what each has offered to our understanding of territoriality and
how they can be unified. We explain how they are related to other approaches to
studying territories and home ranges, and point towards possible future
directions. |
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Keywords: | animal movement home range individual-based models mechanistic models reaction– diffusion equations territoriality |
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