A model of animal movements in a bounded space

Most studies describing animal movements have been developed in the framework of population dispersion or population dynamics, and have mainly focused on movements in open spaces. During their trips, however, animals are likely to encounter physical heterogeneities that guide their movements and, as a result, influence their spatial distribution. In this paper, we develop a statistical model of individual movement in a bounded space. We introduced cockroaches in a circular arena and quantified accurately the behaviors underlying their movement in a finite space. Close to the edges, we considered that the animals exhibit a linear movement mode with a constant probability per unit time to leave the edge and enter the central zone of the arena. Far from the walls cockroaches were assumed to move according to a diffusive random walk which enabled us to overcome the inherent problem of the quantification of the turning angle distribution. A numerical model implementing the behavioral rules derived from our experiments, confirms that the pattern of the spatial distribution of animals observed can be reliably accounted for by wall-following behaviors combined with a diffusive random walk. The approach developed in this study can be applied to model the movements of animals in various environment under consideration of spatial structure. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.