[Babase] Male natal dispersal patterns

Susan Alberts alberts at duke.edu
Sat Oct 4 14:53:45 EDT 2008


Dear all,

This exchange did not end up in the archives of the mailing list  
because it had an attachment that I didn't want to send out to the  
mailing list. I am copying the email here without the attachment so  
that we have it in the archives -- it relates to the "3-day rule" for  
assigning male natal dispersal dates.

Note that the 3-day rule and the decision about what day he dispersed  
does NOT affect what the male's records look like in Members - the  
Members records still just simply record where he was every day. Note  
also that this does NOT affect secondary dispersals, only the first,  
because it is only natal dispersals that we assign an "official" date  
to.


Begin forwarded message:

> From: Susan Alberts <alberts at duke.edu>
> Date: September 4, 2008 11:43:41 AM EDT
> To: Jeanne Altmann <altj at Princeton.EDU>, kfenn Fenn  
> <kfenn at princeton.edu>, Lacey Maryott <lacey.maryott at duke.edu>
> Subject: Male dispersal patterns
>
> Jeanne and Tabby,
>
> Attached is a fun graph that informs a discussion we've had. Recall  
> that we discussed the problem of assigning male natal dispersal  
> dates in light of the fact that a number of males leave and then  
> return to their natal group, sometimes repeatedly. They natal  
> dispersal date is assigned as the first date that they leave for  
> more than three days. The question is, if returning is very common,  
> does it make sense to redefine natal dispersal so that they really  
> have to be gone (ie don't return) before they are counted as  
> dispersing.
>
> I think the answer is that we do NOT need to redefine natal  
> dispersal. Attached is a graph that shows that the majority of  
> males do not return after their first dispersal. We looked at two  
> time periods, 1976-1992 and 2000-2007 (more below on why we didn't  
> look at 1992-2000). IN each case, there are some males that return  
> (9 out of 44 in the first period and 11 out of 55 in the second).  
> They return anywhere from 4 to 144 days later, and there is no  
> clear pattern that would allow us to say "5 days or 10 days or 20  
> days gone is a better cutoff than three days gone".
>
> Take a look at the graph and let us know what you think.
>
> We did not include data from 1992-2000 because Lacey discovered  
> that during this period the 3-day rule was not consistently  
> followed. In fact we can't tell what rule was followed, the  
> disperse dates are a mess. All of them will have to be redone. We  
> will work on that here.
>
> Susan
>
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------
> Susan Alberts, Dept. Biology, Duke University, Durham NC 27708.  
> Phone 919-660-7272, Fax 919-660-7293. alberts at duke.edu
>
>
>

-----------------------------------------------
Susan Alberts, Dept. Biology, Duke University, Durham NC 27708. Phone  
919-660-7272, Fax 919-660-7293. alberts at duke.edu





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