Abstract
Animal sociality (i.e., conspecific attraction or avoidance) can influence how animals move (i.e., sinuous to straight) across landscapes. Active subsidies are animal-transported resources (e.g., nutrients, detritus, prey) or consumers (e.g., predators, parasites, pathogens) across ecosystem boundaries and can affect ecosystem function. Animal movement has been shown to affect the spatial distributions of active subsidies. However, there is limited research on how conspecific interaction affects active subsidy distributions through animal movement. Based on dispersal from a donor to recipient ecosystem, we constructed a spatially explicit individual-based model (IBM) to quantify the effect of variation in conspecific interaction in three scenarios (attraction, avoidance, no interaction) and movement behavior as a correlated random walk on living and dead subsidy displacement, density, and clustering. In each conspecific interaction scenario, we examined emergent subsidy distributions from varying the straightness of movement path and the settlement probability as a function of settled conspecifics within dispersers’ perceptual range. Movement behavior predicted subsidy displacement, and conspecific interaction determined subsidy density and clustering patterns. We found that avoidance spread subsidies farther and at lower densities in the recipient ecosystem, generating more spread-out dead subsidy clusters. Attraction resulted in fewer, smaller, and denser living subsidy clusters closer to the ecosystem boundary. Higher settlement probability constrained living subsidy displacement with increased subsidy density and clustering across conspecific interaction scenarios. Subsidy density and clustering increased with perceptual range in attraction scenarios, limiting subsidy displacement. Subsidy displacement increased with perceptual range in avoidance scenarios, reducing subsidy density and clustering. This work is the first systematic simulation study on the influence of animal movement interactions with sociality on spatial subsidies across a broad parameter space. Our work provides context for empirical studies of active subsidy distribution and impact for a variety of taxa and ecosystems.
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Abbreviations
- IBM:
-
individual-based model
- CRW:
-
correlated random walk
- %IncMSE:
-
percentage increase in mean square error (random forest model)
- IncNodePurity:
-
increase in node purity (random forest models)
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Acknowledgments
The corresponding author, Daniel Kwadwo Bampoh (DKB), conducted this research as a doctoral candidate in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources (FNR) at Purdue University (West Lafayette, Indiana). DKB and co-authors (Patrick Andrew Zollner (PAZ) and Julia Elizabeth Earl (JEE)) on this work hereby acknowledge Purdue FNR for providing facilities and equipment for conducting this research. DKB, PAZ, and JEE would also like to thank Linda Lee (Head of Interdisciplinary Ecological Sciences and Engineering (IESE) program at Purdue) and Brian Pijanowski (Director of Center for Global Soundscapes (CGS) at Purdue) for additional review help.
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While conducting this research at Purdue University, DKB was sponsored by the Office of Interdisciplinary Graduate Programs (OIGP) (Fmr. Director: Colleen Gabauer) and additional support was provided by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture McIntire Stennis project no. 1010322.
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DKB conducted literature review, performed statistical analysis, and drafted the manuscript. PAZ and JEE assisted with idea formation and concept development. All authors discussed results and contributed to the final manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Bampoh, D.K., Earl, J.E. & Zollner, P.A. Simulating the relative effects of movement and sociality on the distribution of animal-transported subsidies. Theor Ecol 14, 57–70 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12080-020-00480-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12080-020-00480-9