Null models confirm nest site fidelity by male smallmouth bass, Micropterus dolomieu

Many animals appear to preferentially renest in proximity to a site they previously occupied. Evidence of nest fidelity is often inferred from a right skewed distribution of distances between the nests of individuals that breed in two consecutive reproduction episodes, where many individuals nest some arbitrarily close distance to their prior nest and others, in the extended right tail of the distribution, nest far from the nest they previously occupied. Because right skewed distributions of inter-nest distances can arise even when individuals choose nest locations randomly, however, such inferences are prone to error. The importance of null models-used to generate patterns of individual inter-nest distances by processes that do not involve site attachment-for inferences about site fidelity has been known for decades but is still often unappreciated or ignored.

The right skewed distributions of inter-nest distances observed in two earlier studies of male smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu) suggest prima facie that males exhibit nest site fidelity between annual reproduction episodes, but patterns of inter-nest distances have yet to be compared to an adequate null model. Here, we evaluate the nest site fidelity of marked male M. dolomieu in a decade-long dataset, where we apply a randomization procedure based on the rencontre probability problem to generate null models. Eight observed distributions of individual, annual inter-nest distances are compared to a year-specific null model to determine whether random processes are sufficient to explain the observed distributions of inter-nest distances.

Through contrasts between observed annual inter-nest distances and results derived from null models that imposed realistic constraints on behavior, we show that some males were undoubtedly nest-site faithful. To reinforce the utility of null models and to make these kinds of models more accessible, we also provide a supplemental tutorial. The tutorial illustrates how random site choices, subject to common ecological and behavioral constraints, and even how distance is measured, can produce patterns of inter-nest distances that falsely imply nest site fidelity, or a lack of fidelity. The R code needed to reproduce these null models is included. The inference errors evident in our examples generalize to other forms of site fidelity, such as the apparent patch fidelity of certain sea bird foragers.

The comparisons of observed distributions of inter-nest distances with those generated by null models imply that, as suggested in prior studies, male M. dolomieu indeed exhibit annual nest site fidelity. Procedures like those we apply are necessary first steps in analyses when distributions of distances between the nests of individuals in consecutive reproduction episodes are used to infer nest-site fidelity. Why male M. dolomieu are site faithful is a question yet to be answered.