Abstract

The concept of home range is an important biological phenomenon and has received considerable attention. In applying the concept to mammals Burt (1943) defined it as, "that area traversed by the individual in its normal activities of food getting, mating, and caring for young. " Later, Hayne (1949) defined a circular home range with concentric zones of variable utilization around a center of activity. Both workers emphasized the need to know the behavior patterns of the animals within their respective home ranges. The statistical evaluation initiated by Hayne (1949) has been refined to provide increasingly precise probability estimates of an animal being at any specified distance from its center of activity (Dice and Clark, 1953; Calhoun and Casby, 1958; Harrison, 1958; Burge, 1967). Recent research in social interactions of small mammal populations used the density probability function to estimate home ranges (Jorgensen, 1968a, 1968b; Speth, 1969).

Degree

College and Department

Life Sciences; Plant and Wildlife Sciences

Rights

http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/