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Memory keeps you at home: a mechanistic model for home range emergence

Bram Van Moorter, Darcy Visscher, Simon Benhamou, Luca Borger Orcid Logo, Mark S Boyce, Jean-Michel Gaillard

Oikos, Volume: 118, Issue: 5, Pages: 641 - 652

Swansea University Author: Luca Borger Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1111/j.1600-0706.2008.17003.x

Abstract

Despite its central place in animal ecology no general mechanistic movement model with an emergent home-range pattern has yet been proposed. Random walk models, which are commonly used to model animal movement, show diffusion instead of a bounded home range and therefore require special modification...

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Published in: Oikos
Published: 2009
URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa16621
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Abstract: Despite its central place in animal ecology no general mechanistic movement model with an emergent home-range pattern has yet been proposed. Random walk models, which are commonly used to model animal movement, show diffusion instead of a bounded home range and therefore require special modifications. Current approaches for mechanistic modeling of home ranges apply only to a limited set of taxa, namely territorial animals and/or central place foragers. In this paper we present a more general mechanistic movement model based on a biased correlated random walk, which shows the potential for home-range behavior. The model is based on an animal tracking a dynamic resource landscape, using a biologically plausible two-part memory system, i.e. a reference- and a working-memory. Our results show that by adding these memory processes the random walker produces home-range behavior as it gains experience, which also leads to more efficient resource use. Interestingly, home-range patterns, which we assessed based on home-range overlap and increase in area covered with time, require the combined action of both memory components to emerge. Our model has the potential to predict home-range size and can be used for comparative analysis of the mechanisms shaping home-range patterns.
Keywords: home range, diffusion, random walk, spatial ecology, movement ecology, memory.
College: Faculty of Science and Engineering
Issue: 5
Start Page: 641
End Page: 652