Publications Repository - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

Despite the importance of ungulate migrations, we lack a complete understanding of why some ungulates species migrate and some do not. Moreover, at the population level, some migrate and others remain behind as residents, a phenomenon known as partial migration. Even though progress has been made towards understanding long-term fitness benefits of partial migration, the underlying decision-making process that makes some individuals migrate and others remain within one single range remain unknown. In this presentation I will combine empirical data from three different migrant ungulate species and mathematical modeling to address this question. I will first show that, across these three ungulate species, the number of residents is unrelated to total population size, a pattern predicted by no previous modeling framework. Next, I will introduce a new model of ungulate partial migration wherein individuals probabilistically decide to start migrating based on the intensity of environmental and social cues. Within this modeling framework, residents arise for most parameter combinations and the number of residents is largely invariant with total population size. Therefore, this new model explains the ubiquity of residents in migratory ungulate populations and presents novel patterns to be tested with further data collection.