Analysis of Central‐Place Space‐Use Patterns: The Elastic Disc Revisited

Ideas from ecology, economics, and geography are synthesized into a central—place, space—utilization model which is analytically as well as conceptually useful. Incorporation of social and ecological factors extends common home range models, which incorporate only distance. The patch preference and competition coefficients which are "revealed" by regression on actual use—intensity patterns indicate the importance of these factors by the degree to which the perturb an appropriate distance—decay function. Proximate factors reveal themselves by deforming a Huxleyan "elastic disc." The analytical value of the model is illustrated by an example from my studies of eastern chipmunks.