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

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 repo...

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Main Authors: Navinder J Singh, Kjell Leonardsson
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:unknown
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Online Access:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094750
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094750&type=printable
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spelling ftrepec:oai:RePEc:plo:pone00:0094750 2024-04-14T08:00:33+00:00 Partial Migration and Transient Coexistence of Migrants and Residents in Animal Populations Navinder J Singh Kjell Leonardsson https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094750 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094750&type=printable unknown https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094750 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094750&type=printable article ftrepec 2024-03-19T10:26:13Z 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. Article in Journal/Newspaper Alces alces RePEc (Research Papers in Economics)
institution Open Polar
collection RePEc (Research Papers in Economics)
op_collection_id ftrepec
language unknown
description 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.
format Article in Journal/Newspaper
author Navinder J Singh
Kjell Leonardsson
spellingShingle Navinder J Singh
Kjell Leonardsson
Partial Migration and Transient Coexistence of Migrants and Residents in Animal Populations
author_facet Navinder J Singh
Kjell Leonardsson
author_sort Navinder J Singh
title Partial Migration and Transient Coexistence of Migrants and Residents in Animal Populations
title_short Partial Migration and Transient Coexistence of Migrants and Residents in Animal Populations
title_full Partial Migration and Transient Coexistence of Migrants and Residents in Animal Populations
title_fullStr Partial Migration and Transient Coexistence of Migrants and Residents in Animal Populations
title_full_unstemmed Partial Migration and Transient Coexistence of Migrants and Residents in Animal Populations
title_sort partial migration and transient coexistence of migrants and residents in animal populations
url https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094750
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094750&type=printable
genre Alces alces
genre_facet Alces alces
op_relation https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094750
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094750&type=printable
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