RESEARCH ARTICLE
Natal Dispersal and Sociality of Young Galapagos Hawks on Santiago Island
Jose Luis Rivera*, 1, 2, F. Hernan Vargas2, Patricia G. Parker1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2011Volume: 4
First Page: 12
Last Page: 16
Publisher Id: TOOENIJ-4-12
DOI: 10.2174/1874453201104010012
Article History:
Received Date: 25/11/2010Revision Received Date: 18/01/2011
Acceptance Date: 19/01/2011
Electronic publication date: 13/4/2011
Collection year: 2011
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
The Galapagos Hawk (Buteo galapagoensis) is the only diurnal resident raptor in the Galapagos Archipelago, where it exhibits a cooperatively polyandrous mating system. Before breeding, young hawks spend 3-4 years as nonterritorial floaters. Individuals in this age class are highly gregarious on the island of Santiago. Here we examine patterns in natal dispersal and ask whether they appear to develop social affiliations with particular individuals during their juvenile years. Using data collected between 1998 and 2009 from a banded population of 25 territorial groups, we found that natal dispersal is more likely to be to territories adjacent to natal territories than expected by chance, and is not significantly related to the specific type of vegetation of the natal territory. We found no evidence of social affiliations or stable coalitions among particular juveniles; instead they moved in opportunistic aggregations.