Animals Defend Their Territory

Territories may be held by an individual, a mated pair, or a group. Territoriality is not a fixed property a species: for example, robins defend territories as pairs during the breeding season and as individuals during the winter, while some nectarivores defend territories only during the mornings (when plants are richest in nectar). In species that do not form pair bonds, male and female territories are ten independent, in the sense that males defend territories only against other males, and females only against other females; in this case, if the species is polygynous, one male territory will probably contain several female territories, while in some polyandrous species such as the Northern Jacana, this situation is reversed.
Quite ten territories that only yield a single resource are defended. For example, European Blackbirds may defend feeding territories that are distant from their nest sites, and in some species that form leks, for example the Uganda kob (a grazing antelope), males defend the lek site (which is used only for mating).
Territoriality is only shown by a minority species. More commonly, an individual or a group animals will have an area that it habitually uses but does not necessarily defend; this is called its home range. The home ranges different groups ten overlap, and in the overlap areas the groups will tend to avoid each other rather than seeking to expel each other. Within the home range there may be a core area that no other individual group uses, but again this is as a result avoidance rather than defense.
Behavioural ecologists have argued that food distribution determines whether a species will be territorial or not. Territoriality will emerge where there is a focused resource that provides enough for the individual or group, within a boundary that is small enough to be defended without the expenditure too much effort.