Abstract:
We studied the relationship between resource—
food patch—richness and dispersion on group and territory
size of black-backed jackals Canis mesomelas in the Namib
Desert. Along beaches where food patches are mostly small,
widely separated jackal group sizes are small, and territories
are narrow and extremely elongated. Where food patches
are rich, fairly clumped and also heterogeneous, group sizes
are large and territory sizes small. At a superabundant and
highly clumped food source—a large seal rookery—group
sizes are large, and territoriality is absent. Although jackals
feed at the coast and den nearby, individuals move linearly
far inland along well-defined footpaths. The marked climatic
gradient from the cold coast inland—a drop in wind speed
and rise in effective temperature Te – and use of particular
paths by different groups—strongly suggests that these
movements are for thermoregulatory reasons only.
