Scaling of Natal Dispersal Distances in Terrestrial Birds and Mammals

By G. Sutherland, A. Harestad, K. Price, Ken Lertzman. 2000

600 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Natal dispersal is a process that is critical in the spatial dynamics of populations, including population spread, recolonization, and gene flow. It is a central focus of conservation issues for many vertebrate species. Using data for 77 bird and 68 mammal species, we tested whether median and maximum natal dispersal distances were correlated with body mass, diet type, social system, taxonomic family, and migratory status. Body mass and diet type were found to predict both median and maximum natal dispersal distances in mammals: large species dispersed farther than small ones, and carnivorous species dispersed farther than herbivores and omnivores. Similar relationships occurred for carnivorous bird species, but not for herbivorous or omnivorous ones. Natal dispersal distances in birds or mammals were not significantly related to broad categories of social systems. Only in birds were factors such as taxonomic relatedness and migratory status correlated with natal dispersal, and then only for maximum distances. Summary properties of dispersal processes appeared to be derived from interactions among behavioral and morphological characteristics of species and from their linkages to the dynamics of resource availability in landscapes. In all the species we examined, most dispersers moved relatively short distances, and long-distance dispersal was uncommon. On the basis of these findings, we fit an empirical model based on the negative exponential distribution for calculating minimum probabilities that animals disperse particular distances from their natal areas. This model, coupled with knowledge of a species' body mass and diet type, can be used to conservatively predict dispersal distances for different species and examine possible consequences of large-scale habitat alterations on connectedness between populations. Taken together, our results can provide managers with the means to identify species vulnerable to landscape-level habitat changes such as forest fragmentation. In addition, our dispersal models can be used to predict which species in a community are likely to be the most vulnerable to loss of connectedness and allow managers to test the merits of alternative habitat conservation plans.

Subfields: Ecology, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0de59f77ad869ff3bc5d4c45885b1fa7bdc381a6

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Citations in the corpus

Multiple proximate and ultimate causes of natal dispersal in white-tailed deer (2008, unknown): “Dispersal distances of vertebrates also differ according to ultimate cause of dispersal (Waser 1987; Sutherland et al. 2000).”
Does size matter for dispersal distance (2007, background): “Though allometry is well-known for other traits (e.g. metabolic rate, etc.), allometry of dispersal distance has only recently been analysed for birds and mammals (Sutherland et al. , 2000; Bowman et al. , 2002).”
RECRUITMENT, DISPERSAL, AND DEMOGRAPHIC RESCUE IN SPATIALLY-STRUCTURED WHITE-TAILED PTARMIGAN POPULATIONS (2000, background): “Data on maximum movement distances such as provided by Sutherland et al. (2000) and on potential dispersal barriers are required to identify the scale at which studies of multiple populations should be designed.”
Is dispersal distance of birds proportional to territory size (2003, methodology): “Sutherland et al. (2000) have demonstrated that dispersal distributions are not distinguishable between sexes.”
Biodiversity, species interactions and ecological networks in a fragmented world (2012, background): “colonisers (Hanski, 1999), as are larger animals (Hoekstra and Fagan, 1998; Lomolino, 1985; Sutherland et al., 2000).”
Differential effects of past climate warming on mountain and flatland species distributions: a multispecies North American mammal assessment (2006, background): “One alternative explanatory variable considered was body mass, given that larger sized mammals may have greater dispersal distances than smaller ones ( Sutherland et al., 2000 ).”
The natal dispersal of tree swallows in a continuous mainland environment (2005, background): “uncorrected estimates in Payne 1991; Plissner & Gowaty 1996; Sutherland et al. 2000 ).”
The importance of long‐distance dispersal in biodiversity conservation (2005, background): “An extensive literature addresses the importance of dispersal in biodiversity conservation (e.g. Ellstrand, 1992; Strykstra et al., 1998; Sweanor et al., 2000; Cooper & Walters, 2002; Honnay et al., 2002; Haddad et al., 2003).”
Using body size to predict perceptual range (2002, background): “…above, should scale with body size (Gillis and Nams 1998) similar to other ecologically important life history traits such as dispersal distance (Sutherland et al. 2000), home range size (Kelt and Van Vuren 1999), basal metabolic rate, physiological parameters, and litter size (Peters 1983).”
Ecological, Behavioral, and Life‐History Correlates of Mammal Extinctions in West Africa (2003, methodology): “To test this idea, I derived a second estimate of isolation corrected for dispersal ability as the ratio of isolation distance (see Methods) to average dispersal distance (raw data available from the author; Sutherland et al. 2000).”
Applications of landscape genetics in conservation biology: concepts and challenges (2010, background): “To define the appropriate spatial scale, researchers mostly rely on available ecological and demographic information on movement and dispersal distances (Sutherland et al. 2000; Bowman et al. 2002).”