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Encounter behaviour shapes ecological distributions
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Authors
Stefan Neuenfeldt 
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.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.32942/X2XM53
Subjects
Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Marine Biology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Keywords
encounter behaviour; mass action; over-dispersion; heavy tails; point processes; predator–prey interactions; collective behaviour; recruitment; persistence
Dates
Published: 2026-10-09 09:20
Last Updated: 2026-10-09 09:20
License
CC BY Attribution 4.0 International
Additional Metadata
Conflict of interest statement:
None.
Data and Code Availability Statement:
Figure 2 is computed from standard point-process expressions; no simulations were used. The MATLAB code that produces it is available from the author on request.
Language:
English
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