Boundaries, Bounties and Border Wars: Territorial dynamics in free-ranging dogs

Biswas, Sourabh (2025) Boundaries, Bounties and Border Wars: Territorial dynamics in free-ranging dogs. PhD thesis, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata.

Text (PhD thesis of Sourabh Biswas (18RS107)) 18RS107.pdf - Submitted Version Restricted to Repository staff only Download (29MB)

Abstract

The utilization and defence of resources often shape behavioural repertoires of animals, influencing their life histories. Territoriality is a signature of many carnivorous species, including all canids. The domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris), having evolved from wolf-like ancestors, have retained many behavioural traits of its ancestors, perhaps the most distinct of which is territoriality. Indeed, territoriality is likely to have played an important role in the domestication of dogs, as humans found the ancestral canids to be useful as guards. Free-ranging dogs that inhabit human-dominated landscapes are more akin to the proto-dogs that existed before artificial selection led to the development of breeds. Even today, these dogs are valued in villages and suburban areas due to their territorial nature as neighbourhood guards. Though the territorial nature of dogs is well known, this has hardly been studied in free populations from a scientific perspective. How are territories formed and maintained? How do resources and group sizes influence territory size and territorial behaviour? How do fluctuations in resources and anthropogenic factors influence territoriality in the free-ranging dogs? This thesis aimed to address these questions, beginning with the theoretical framework of the Resource Dispersion Hypothesis that has been proposed to explain the relationship between territory, resources and group size. Using a mixture of longterm behavioural observations, censuses, surveys experiments, we studied territorial dynamics of urban and peri-urban free-ranging dogs, integrating behavioural, ecological and cognitive perspectives.

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