Not a Home Range! Varieties of Territory There Are Many
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Definitions of Territoriality Not a Home Range! Varieties of Territory There are many. Huntingford and Turner’s defns are specifically One end of the spectrum---Odum: geared toward distinguishing territory from h.r. A bit ad hoc: •“An actively defended home range” 1. Based on Resource that the owner gets •“At the risk of offending semantic purists we are Home range is basically just the area in which access to: including under the heading of territoriality any active mechanism that spaces individuals or groups apart from an individual tends to restrict itself food one another, which means that we can talk about territoriality in plants and microorganisms as well as in Example of coatis: mates shelter animals.” Exclusive home ranges but not territories. •Huntingford and Turner---A Behaviorally defined notion. Territorial behavior has 4 components: 1. Site attachment also nest sites 2. Exclusive use of the area 3. Agonistic behavior 4. Attack changes to retreat at the territory 2. Length of Time defended. boundary Ranges from hours to year-round Typically refers to an area in space rather than a 3. Defended by whom and how many? mobile resource (for example red deer stag and Single individuals versus mating pairs, etc. his harem of does) Yarrow’s Spiny Lizards on Mt. Graham Phyletic Perspective on Territories Population-level consequences Studying the phyletic a. Biol. Of or pertaining to the development of a A fatal blow for the Ideal Free Distribution species or other taxonomic group. effects of test- concept. osterone implants Winn 1954. Territoriality in Darters (fish) in male lizards. Thus, Natl Seln may act to increase (Marler and proportion of territorial animals in a Moore) population. A continuum of territorial behavior across closely related species from “more primitive” to more recent/more specialized: •Percina caprodes---lake dweller, non- Costs and Benefits of Territoriality territorial Benefits: •Hadropterus maculatus---drive other males •Food: lasts longer, lower depletion rates, less away from females variability in supply •Mates •Etheostoma (2 spp.) defend females and •Offpspring rearing (female salmon) remain near landmarks •Lowered predation (due to nest dispersion) •E. blennoides---high aggression and fixed Costs: territories. •Acquisition •Displays and patrolling •Possibility of injury (though not very common!) •“Single-Use” Territory •TTP (Displays and Patrolling really are costly!) How Large a Territory? African Bee-eaters: Conditional Territoriality Another simple graphical framework: Live in mud- Some animals are bank colonies, territorial at times and but forage in downright gregarious at separate other times. foraging terri- tories that Bellbirds in New they defend Zealand. against intru- ders Fitness Currency Extra 25 kJ/day from switching to terr. behav. under low food density Communal feeding area close to home: XY 100 mg insect/hour average Territory Size Rypstra (1989) studying a social spider: Defended, distant territories •Low Food Density---solitary and highly territorial 250 mg insect/hour average! The optimum occurs where the slopes of the •Hi FD---social. aggregations spin webs and individuals are free to go where they will. Fewer cost and the benefit curves are equal (That is insects escape from the group webs. Yet, some birds abandoned their territory to feed where the marginal benefits of a larger territory start to •The bee-eater mystery close to home. Why?!?! decrease faster than the costs are increasing. ) •One would expect that individuals that voluntarily Curve shapes will depend on environmental quality and choose to be non-territorial will do so because there is Once again (as in the starling, central place population size relative to limiting factors not an energetic advantage to holding the territory. foraging example---bringing food back to chicks Explanations for Territory The Resource-holding Power The Payoff Asymmetry Maintenance Asymmetry Hypothesis Hypothesis Two interesting observations: Territory owners are bigger and stronger by 1. Most territory owners don’t forfeit their nature. There are certain costs to establishing a new territories in conflicts with intruders territory, initially 2. Things don’t often escalate to full-blown This generates predictions: fighting but then the payoffs increase over time because you have an “agreement” with your familiar Why could this be? We’ll look at three neighbors explanations. Two testable predictions: 1. If you remove an individual, and let somebody take 1. The “Arbitrary Rule” ESS over his territory, he is less likely to regain his territory if hypothesis: Beewolf wasps (O’Neill 1983) you keep him captive longer Pseudoscorpions (Zeh et al. 1997) 2. The duration of contest to re- Damselflies, endurance flying, and fat gain the territory should increase reserves (Marden and Waage 1990) with increasing time of being away from its original territory Speckled wood butterfly and sunspot Krebs 1982: found these trends territories. (Davies 1978) But note red-winged blackbirds (Shutler and BUT---not a properly controlled Wetherhead 1991) experiment.