Modeling Territory Attendance and Preening Behavior in a Seabird Colony as Functions of Environmental Conditions

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2007

Abstract

In previous studies we developed a general compartmental methodology for modeling animal behavior and applied the methodology to marine birds and mammals. In this study we used the methodology to construct a system of two differential equations to model the dynamics of territory attendance and preening in a gull colony on Protection Island, Strait of Juan de Fuca, Washington. We found that colony occupancy was driven primarily by abiotic environmental conditions, including tide height, time of day, solar elevation, and wind speed over open water. For birds in the colony, preening behavior was driven to some extent by abiotic environmental conditions (including time of day, solar elevation, humidity, and wind speed on the colony), but apparently was driven primarily by local and/or biotic effects not included in the model. In terms of R 2 values, the model explained 65% and 37% of the variability in colony occupancy and preening data, respectively, as a function of these six abiotic environmental factors. © 2007 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Journal Title

Journal of Biological Dynamics

Volume

1

Issue

1

First Page

95

Last Page

107

DOI

10.1080/17513750601032679

First Department

Mathematics

Second Department

Biology

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