The Measurement of Dispersion in Small Mammal Populations

Abstract

A method of analyzing the spatial relationships among the home ranges of small mammals is described. This method compares the amount of overlap observed for a given set of home ranges with the overlap that would be expected if those ranges were distributed randomly within the habitat. Application of this method to the home range maps of Peromyscus leucopus showed that white-footed mice of the same sex occupied mutually exclusive ranges, but tended to occur in areas occupied by members of the opposite sex.