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A mathematical approach to territorial pattern formation
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- Author(s) / Creator(s)
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Territorial behaviour is widespread in the animal kingdom, with creatures
seeking to gain parts of space for their exclusive use. It arises through a
complicated interplay of many different behavioural features. Extracting
and quantifying the processes that give rise to territorial patterns requires
both mathematical models of movement and interaction mechanisms, to-
gether with statistical techniques for rigorously extracting parameters from
data. Here, we give a brisk, pedagogical overview of the techniques so far
developed to tackle the problem of territory formation. We give some ex-
amples of what has already been achieved using these techniques, together
with pointers as to where we believe the future lies in this area of study.
This progress is a single example of a major aim for 21st century science: to
construct quantitatively predictive theory for ecological systems. -
- Date created
- 2014-01-01
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- Type of Item
- Article (Draft / Submitted)