Measuring the Degree of Overlap and Segregation among Multiple Probabilistic Home Ranges: A New Index with Illustrative Application to the Lesser Kestrel Falco naumanni

Home range overlap/segregation has several important applications to wildlife conservation and management. In this work, we first address the issue of measuring the degree of overlap/segregation among an arbitrarily large number (i.e., n ≥ 2) of probabilistic animal home ranges (i.e., utilization di...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Animals (Basel) 2021-10, Vol.11 (10), p.2913
Main Authors: Ferrarini, Alessandro, Giglio, Giuseppe, Pellegrino, Stefania Caterina, Gustin, Marco
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alta Murgia
animal space use
Animal species
biotelemetry
Birds
bivariate normal home range
Breeding seasons
Case studies
Disease transmission
Falco naumanni
Home range
Interspecific relationships
Italy
multiple home range overlaps
Polygons
Probability
Site fidelity
Social networks
Social organization
Wildlife conservation
Wildlife management
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Summary:Home range overlap/segregation has several important applications to wildlife conservation and management. In this work, we first address the issue of measuring the degree of overlap/segregation among an arbitrarily large number (i.e., n ≥ 2) of probabilistic animal home ranges (i.e., utilization distributions). This subject matter has recently been solved for home ranges measured as polygons (e.g., percent minimum convex polygons and multinuclear cores) but not yet for probabilistic ones. Accordingly, we introduce a novel index named the PGOI (probabilistic general overlap index), and its complement, the PGSI (probabilistic general segregation index), an index for computation of probabilistic home range overlap/segregation at individual, population and species levels. Whatever the number of probabilistic home ranges, the PGOI returns a single score ranging in the [0, 100] interval. We applied the PGOI to five lesser kestrels (Falco naumanni) at Santeramo in Colle (Apulia region; Southern Italy) as a case study. Our new index can be applied to any animal species and to home ranges derived from any type of probabilistic home range estimator.
ISSN:2076-2615
2076-2615
DOI:10.3390/ani11102913