Life Sciences Commons^™

Pteropids are large, highly mobile bats that are distributed widely across islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, southern Asia, and Australia. Dispersal behaviors and colonization patterns of pteropid species among oceanic islands are poorly known. In the southern Pacific, Pteropus samoensis and P. tonganus have partially overlapping ranges, existing in sympatry on the Samoan and Fijian archipelagos. These species exhibit differences in morphology and roosting behavior, with P. samoensis being smaller and tending to roost solitarily or in small groups. Here, we use genetic data to explore whether these species also exhibit differences with regard to patterns of population …

Spatial capture–recapture (SCR) models are a

relatively recent development in quantitative ecology, and

they are becoming widely used to model density in studies

of animal populations using camera traps, DNA sampling

and other methods which produce spatially explicit individual

encounter information. One of the core assumptions

of SCR models is that individuals possess home ranges that

are spatially stationary during the sampling period. For

many species, this assumption is unlikely to be met and,

even for species that are typically territorial, individuals

may disperse or exhibit transience at some life stages. In

this paper we first conduct a simulation study …