Why Male Ground Squirrels Disperse

When they are about two months old, male Belding’s develop the idea that natal dispersal, like other behaviors ground squirrels (Spermophilus beldingi) leave the burrow and phenotypic attributes, can be understood from mulwhere they were born, never to return. Their sisters tiple, complementary perspectives. Separating these levbehave quite differently, remaining near home throughels of analysis helps organize hypotheses about cause out their lives. Why do juvenile males, and only males, and effect in biology (7). In the case of natal dispersal, disperse? This deceptively simple question, which has this approach can minimize misunderstandings in termiintrigued us for more than a decade (1, 2), has led us to nology and allow for clearer focus on the issues of investigate evolutionary, ecological, interest. ontogenetic, and mechanistic explaQuestions of the general form nations. Only recently have answers “Why does animal A exhibit trait X?” begun to emerge. A multilevel analysis have always caused confusion Dispersal, defined as a complete helps us to understand among biologists. And even today, and permanent emigration from an the literature is full of examples. The individual’s home range, occurs why male and not female sometime in the life cycle of nearly all Belding’s ground nature-nurture controversy, which