Theory of Home Range Estimation from Mark-Recapture Measurements of Animal Populations

A theory is provided for the estimation of home ranges of animals from the standard mark-recapture technique in which data are collected by capturing, tagging and recapturing the animals. The theoretical tool used is the Fokker-Planck equation, its characteristic quantities being the diffusion constant which describes the motion of the animals, and the attractive potential which addresses their tendency to live near their burrows. The measurement technique is shown to correspond to the calculation of a certain kind of mean square displacement of the animals relevant to the specific probing window in space corresponding to the trapping region. The output of the theory is a sigmoid curve of the observable mean square displacement as a function of the ratio of distances characteristic of the home range and the trapping region, along with an explicit prescription to extract the home range form observations. Applications of the theory to rodent movement in Panama and New Mexico are pointed out. An analysis is given of the sensitivity of our theory to the choice of the confining potential via the use of various representative cases. A comparison is provided between home range size inferred from our method and from other procedures employed in the literature. Consequences of home range overlap are also discussed.