van de Pol, Martijn, Pen, Ido, Heg, Dik, and Weissing, Franz J. (2007) Variation in habitat choice and delayed reproduction: adaptive queuing strategies or individual quality differences? American Naturalist, 170 (4). pp. 530-541.

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Abstract

In most species, some individuals delay reproduction or occupy inferior breeding positions. The queue hypothesis tries to explain both patterns by proposing that individuals strategically delay breeding (queue) to acquire better breeding or social positions. In 1995, Ens, Weissing, and Drent addressed evolutionarily stable queuing strategies in situations with habitat heterogeneity. However, their model did not consider the non–mutually exclusive individual quality hypothesis, which suggests that some individuals delay breeding or occupy inferior breeding positions because they are poor competitors. Here we extend their model with individual differences in competitive abilities, which are probably plentiful in nature. We show that including even the smallest competitive asymmetries will result in individuals using queuing strategies completely different from those in models that assume equal competitors. Subsequently, we investigate how well our models can explain settlement patterns in the wild, using a long‐term study on oystercatchers. This long‐lived shorebird exhibits strong variation in age of first reproduction and territory quality. We show that only models that include competitive asymmetries can explain why oystercatchers' settlement patterns depend on natal origin. We conclude that predictions from queuing models are very sensitive to assumptions about competitive asymmetries, while detecting such differences in the wild is often problematic.

Item ID:	80100
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1537-5323
Keywords:	age of first reproduction, conditional strategies, evolutionarily stable strategy, habitat selection,Haematopus ostralegus, natal habitat preference
Copyright Information:	© 2007 by The University of Chicago.
Date Deposited:	01 Sep 2023 05:37
FoR Codes:	31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3103 Ecology > 310305 Marine and estuarine ecology (incl. marine ichthyology) @ 50% 49 MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES > 4901 Applied mathematics > 490102 Biological mathematics @ 50%
SEO Codes:	28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280102 Expanding knowledge in the biological sciences @ 100%
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