Analysis of a model of group territoriality based on the resource dispersion hypothesis

✍ Scribed by P.J. Bacon; Frank Ball; Paul Blackwell

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1991
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 577 KB
• Volume: 148
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-5193
• DOI: 10.1016/s0022-5193(05)80230-9

✦ Synopsis

The resource dispersion hypothesis (RDH), which states that "groups may develop where resources are dispersed such that the smallest economically defensible territory for a pair.., can also sustain additional animals", has been proposed by Macdonald (1983, Nature, Lond. 301, 379-384.) as a possible explanation for the formation of social groups in territorial animals. An explicit model was put forward by Cart & Macdonald (1986, Anita. Behav. 34, 1540-1549). Our paper analyses their model, and shows that the model predicts that groups larger than a pair, formed in accordance with the RDH, will occur only for a restricted range of parameters. In addition, the independence of territory size and group size, which Carr & Macdonald assumed to follow from their model, only occurs in the particular case of "very rich" patches. A more tractable generalization of the model is briefly discussed.