Optimal use of resources structures home ranges and spatial distribution of black bears
Authored by Michael S Mitchell, Roger A Powell
Date Published: 2007
DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2006.11.017
Sponsors:
United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
National Geographic Society
U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service
Wildlands Research Institute
Port Clyde and Stinson Canning Companies
McIntire Stennis funds
United States National Park Service
North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission
Platforms:
No platforms listed
Model Documentation:
Other Narrative
Mathematical description
Model Code URLs:
Model code not found
Abstract
Research has shown that territories of animals are economical. Home
ranges should be similarly efficient with respect to spatially
distributed resources and this should structure their distribution on a
landscape, although neither has been demonstrated empirically. To test
these hypotheses, we used home range models that optimize resource use
according to resource-maximizing and area-minimizing strategies to
evaluate the home ranges of female black bears, Ursus americanus, living
in the southern Appalachian Mountains. We tested general predictions of
our models using 104 home ranges of adult female bears studied in the
Pisgah Bear Sanctuary, North Carolina, U.S.A., from 1981 to 2001. We
also used our models to estimate home ranges for each real home range
under a variety of strategies and constraints and compared similarity of
simulated to real home ranges. We found that home ranges of female bears
were efficient with respect to the spatial distribution of resources and
were best explained by an area-minimizing strategy with moderate
resource thresholds and low levels of resource depression. Although
resource depression probably influenced the spatial distribution of home
ranges on the landscape, levels of resource depression were too low to
quantify accurately. Home ranges of lactating females had higher
resource thresholds and were more susceptible to resource depression
than those of breeding females. We conclude that home ranges of animals, like territories, are economical with respect to resources, and that
resource depression may be the mechanism behind ideal free or ideal
preemptive distributions on complex, heterogeneous landscapes. (c) 2007
The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier
Ltd. All rights reserved.
Tags
behavior
movements
Economics
Habitat use
time
Density
Territory size
Availability
Clethrionomys-rufocanus
Hummingbirds