Graphing The Data: An Ideal Free Distribution

Using the data for high- and low-quality habitats, create a graph that represents how per capita benefit changes as a function of the number of individuals in the patch.

Based on these data, how many individuals must move to the high-quality patch before an individual moves to the low-quality patch? If there were 12 individuals and they followed an ideal free distribution, approximately how many individuals would be in each habitat?

NUMBER OF INDIVIDUALS HIGH-QUALITY PATCH PER CAPITA BENEFIT LOW-QUALITY PATCH PER CAPITA BENEFIT
1 10.0 5.0
2 7.9 4.3
3 6.5 3.7
4 5.4 3.2
5 4.5 2.9
6 3.9 2.6
7 3.4 2.4
8 3.0 2.2
9 2.7 2.0
10 2.4 1.9

Once four individuals have arrived at the high-quality patch, the next individual to arrive would receive a larger per capita benefit by moving to the low-quality patch.

If there are 12 individuals, all individuals would gain the highest per capita benefit if 8 individuals remained in the high-quality patch and 4 individuals moved to the low-quality patch.