ANT 301 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Limiting Factor
Document Summary
What an animal eats and can eat has a major impact on behavior, esp. social behavior. Fundamental concept: females need more food than similar-sized males due to the energetic costs of pregnancy and lactation. In wild populations most females are either pregnant or lactating: lactation most energetically stressful period, not only feeding but carrying, long period of infancy and learning period. Another key niche factor how much space do you use/need/defend: home range size, territoriality. Home range are where a primate group lives: consistent over time, animals return to same food sources / sleeping sites during the year, home ranges of adjacent groups can overlap, no nomadic primates except humans. Territory actively defended boundary of all or part of the home range: conspecifics (members of the same species) kept out, key feature: exclusive access (the social group, only some primates are territorial. Example: lowland gorilla in the congo (has a home range with no territory)
