Encounter behaviour shapes ecological distributions
Abstract
Ecology’s foundational models keep only the first moment of the stochastic distributions of encounters. Yet, encounter behaviour (how animals search, aggregate, hide and move) sets the whole distributional shape: zeros, variance, skew and, where particular behaviours build them, heavy tails. That shape decides vital rates, persistence and spatial pattern, because the rates involved are threshold-like and read the tail, not the mean. I argue that departures from the well-mixed Poisson are the rule; that identifiable, measurable behaviours generate them; that where persistence rests on a refuge, a threshold or a self-reinforcing assembly, removing them removes persistence; and that the task ahead is to derive the shape forward from measured behaviours.
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BibTeX
@misc{neuenfeldt2026encounter,
title = {{Encounter behaviour shapes ecological distributions}},
author = {Stefan Neuenfeldt},
howpublished = {EcoEvoRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.32942/x2xm53},
url = {https://ecoevorxiv.org/repository/view/15399/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Encounter behaviour shapes ecological distributions
AU - Stefan Neuenfeldt
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/09
PB - EcoEvoRxiv
DO - 10.32942/x2xm53
UR - https://ecoevorxiv.org/repository/view/15399/
AB - Ecology’s foundational models keep only the first moment of the stochastic distributions of encounters. Yet, encounter behaviour (how animals search, aggregate, hide and move) sets the whole distributional shape: zeros, variance, skew and, where particular behaviours build them, heavy tails. That shape decides vital rates, persistence and spatial pattern, because the rates involved are threshold-like and read the tail, not the mean. I argue that departures from the well-mixed Poisson are the rule; that identifiable, measurable behaviours generate them; that where persistence rests on a refuge, a threshold or a self-reinforcing assembly, removing them removes persistence; and that the task ahead is to derive the shape forward from measured behaviours.
ER -