Home range: A spatially continuous fractal approach

Conference · Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1989

OSTI ID:5608629

Loehle, C.; Ostee, R.; Gilman, T. L.

A great deal of work has been done on home range quantification and description. All current methods, however, share an approach that leads to fundamental difficulties. We develop a completely new conception of the home range that is spatially continuous rather than point-oriented and that incorporates sample error. It leads to a more robust measure of competition than overlap of utilization distributions. Seasonal movements and habitat relations can be inferred even from rather approximate telemetry data. For studies of travel distance or home range (territory size), however, accuracy of the method is important. In particular, estimation of foraging times and energetics calculations based on travel distance depend on the accuracy of location estimates. For any given pair of points for which travel distance is to be calculated, two types or error interfere with a straight line distance measure. First, point estimates have associated measurement error (point estimate error) which may be quite large for telemetry data. Second, animals rarely travel in straight lines. The path actually taken from point A to B is typically much longer than the straight line from A to B unless A and B were measured quite closely in time. This is interval estimate error which creates an unusual sampling problem. Unlike more accurate measurement of something like mass, more accurate'' interval estimation achieved by increasing the sample frequency results in an increase in total length. This divergence is characteristic of fractal objects. Other such diverging measures include cloud boundaries, coastlines, surface area'' in mountainous terrain, and other irregular objects. Note that increasing the time between samples until statistical independence is achieved causes even more loss of information concerning true distances traveled between sample points. 24 refs., 1 fig.

• Research Organization: Westinghouse Savannah River Co., Aiken, SC (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE/DP
• DOE Contract Number: AC09-89SR18035
• OSTI ID: 5608629
• Report Number(s): DP-MS-88-239; CONF-8908155-1; ON: DE89017861
• Resource Relation: Conference: Ecological Society of America meeting, Toronto (Canada), 3 Aug 1989
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTANT EFFECTS ON LIVING ORGS. AND BIOL. MAT.
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
WILD ANIMALS
MIGRATION
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MIGRATION LENGTH
PLANNING
POPULATION DYNAMICS
TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS
DIMENSIONS
ECOSYSTEMS
LENGTH
510100* - Environment
Terrestrial- Basic Studies- (-1989)
560400 - Other Environmental Pollutant Effects
990230 - Mathematics & Mathematical Models- (1987-1989)