Home range

A home range is the area in which an animal lives and moves on a periodic basis. It is related to the concept of an animal's territory which is the area that is actively defended. The concept of a home range was introduced by W. H. Burt in 1943. He drew maps showing where the animal had been observed at different times. An associated concept is the utilization distribution which examines where the animal is likely to be at any given time. Data for mapping a home range used to be gathered by careful observation, but nowadays, the animal is fitted with a transmission collar or similar GPS device.

The simplest way of measuring the home range is to construct the smallest possible convex polygon around the data but this tends to overestimate the range. The best known methods for constructing utilization distributions are the so-called bivariate Gaussian or normal distribution kernel density methods. More recently, nonparametric methods such as the Burgman and Fox's alpha-hull and Getz and Wilmers local convex hull have been used. Software is available for using both parametric and nonparametric kernel methods.

The concept of the home range can be traced back to a publication in 1943 by W. H. Burt, who constructed maps delineating the spatial extent or outside boundary of an animal's movement during the course of its everyday activities. Associated with the concept of a home range is the concept of a utilization distribution, which takes the form of a two dimensional probability density function that represents the probability of finding an animal in a defined area within its home range. The home range of an individual animal is typically constructed from a set of location points that have been collected over a period of time identifying the position in space of an individual at many points in time. Such data are now collected automatically using collars placed on individuals that transmit through satellites or using mobile cellphone technology and global positioning systems (GPS) technology, at regular intervals.

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