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      Partial Migration and Transient Coexistence of Migrants and Residents in Animal Populations

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      PLoS ONE
      Public Library of Science

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          Abstract

          Partial migration, whereby a proportion of the population migrates, is common across the animal kingdom. Much of the focus in the literature has been on trying to explain the underlying mechanisms for the coexistence of migrants and residents. In addition, there has been an increasing number of reports on the prevalence and frequency of partially migratory populations. One possible explanation for the occurrence of partial migration, which has received no attention in the literature, is that of ‘transient coexistence’ during the invasion phase of a superior behaviour. In this study we develop a theoretical basis for explaining partial migration as a transient coexistence and derive a method to predict the frequency of residents and migrants in partially migrating populations. This method is useful to predict the frequencies of migrants and residents in a small set of populations as a complementing hypothesis to ‘an Evolutionary Stable Strategy (ESS)’. We use the logistic growth equation to derive a formula for predicting the frequencies of residents and migrants. We also use simulations and empirical data from white perch ( Morone americana), moose ( Alces alces) and red deer ( Cervus elaphus) to demonstrate our approach. We show that the probability of detecting partial migration due to transient coexistence depends upon a minimum number of tracked or marked individuals for a given number of populations. Our approach provides a starting point in searching for explanations to the observed frequencies, by contrasting the observed pattern with both the predicted transient and the uniform random pattern. Aggregating such information on observed patterns (proportions of migrants and residents) may eventually lead to the development of a quantitative theory for the equilibrium (ESS) populations as well.

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          Most cited references11

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          Animal personalities: consequences for ecology and evolution.

          Personality differences are a widespread phenomenon throughout the animal kingdom. Past research has focused on the characterization of such differences and a quest for their proximate and ultimate causation. However, the consequences of these differences for ecology and evolution received much less attention. Here, we strive to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive inventory of the potential implications of personality differences, ranging from population growth and persistence to species interactions and community dynamics, and covering issues such as social evolution, the speed of evolution, evolvability, and speciation. The emerging picture strongly suggests that personality differences matter for ecological and evolutionary processes (and their interaction) and, thus, should be considered a key dimension of ecologically and evolutionarily relevant intraspecific variation. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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            The evolution of partial migration in Birds.

            P Lundberg (1988)
            Partial migration, i.e.when one fraction of the population is migratory and the other sedentary, appears to be a widespread phenomenon among many animal taxa, ranging from insects to higher vertebrates. Partial migration in birds was first documented for several Holarctic populations many decades ago. The evolution and maintenance of this particular migratory system have only recently been more thoroughly examined, but our knowledge and understanding of the problem is still incomplete. Currently, one of the main concerns is the fitness balancing of the two behavioural alternatives, i.e. whether migrants and residents within a population are equally fit or if one of the categories is inferior and making 'the best of a bad situation'. Closely tied to this question is the proximate regulation of the migratory and sedentary habits. It has been suggested that a social dominance system might be powerful enough to keep this migration system going; alternatively, a pooulation might be divided into two genetically distinct morphs with different preprogrammed Migratory behaviours. Copyright © 1988. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
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              From migration to nomadism: movement variability in a northern ungulate across its latitudinal range.

              Understanding the causes and consequences of animal movements is of fundamental biological interest because any alteration in movement can have direct and indirect effects on ecosystem structure and function. It is also crucial for assisting spatial wildlife management under variable environmental change scenarios. Recent research has highlighted the need of quantifying individual variability in movement behavior and how it is generated by interactions between individual requirements and environmental conditions, to understand the emergence of population-level patterns. Using a multi-annual movement data set of 213 individual moose (Alces alces) across a latitudinal gradient (from 56 degrees to 67 degrees N) that spans over 1100 km of varying environmental conditions, we analyze the differences in individual and population-level movements. We tested the effect of climate, risk, and human presence in the landscape on moose movements. The variation in these factors explained the existence of multiple movements (migration, nomadism, dispersal, sedentary) among individuals and seven populations. Population differences were primarily related to latitudinal variation in snow depth and road density. Individuals showed both fixed and flexible behaviors across years, and were less likely to migrate with age in interaction with snow and roads. For the predominant movement strategy, migration, the distance, timing, and duration at all latitudes varied between years. Males traveled longer distances and began migrating later in spring than females. Our study provides strong quantitative evidence for the dynamics of animal movements in response to changes in environmental conditions along with varying risk from human influence across the landscape. For moose, given its wide distributional range, changes in the distribution and migratory behavior are expected under future warming scenarios.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                PLoS ONE
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, USA )
                1932-6203
                2014
                10 April 2014
                : 9
                : 4
                : e94750
                Affiliations
                [1]Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umeå, Sweden
                Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien, France
                Author notes

                Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

                Conceived and designed the experiments: NS KL. Performed the experiments: NS KL. Analyzed the data: NS KL. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: NS KL. Wrote the paper: NS KL.

                Article
                PONE-D-13-34424
                10.1371/journal.pone.0094750
                3983253
                24722396
                a332cf0d-b295-4eed-8a9c-5b1ada0aaabb
                Copyright @ 2014

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 22 August 2013
                : 20 March 2014
                Page count
                Pages: 7
                Funding
                NS was supported by the Thematic Programme in Wildlife and forestry at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
                Categories
                Research Article
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Ecology
                Ecological Metrics
                Relative Abundance Distribution
                Behavioral Ecology
                Evolutionary Ecology
                Theoretical Ecology
                Evolutionary Biology
                Evolutionary Theory
                Zoology
                Animal Behavior
                Computer and Information Sciences
                Computing Methods
                Mathematical Computing
                Ecology and Environmental Sciences
                Physical Sciences
                Mathematics
                Algebra
                Algebraic Equations
                Probability Theory
                Statistical Distributions
                Distribution Curves
                Applied Mathematics

                Uncategorized
                Uncategorized

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