Before revision: The nearest and next-to-nearest neighbour spacings between buzzard nests in the Teutoburger Wald around Bielefeld, as gathered in the years2000--2019, are compared with Ginibre random matrix ensembles as well as the Poisson spacing distributionin two dimensions.
After revision: A deeper understanding of the processes underlying the distribution of animals in space is crucial for both basic and applied ecology. The Common buzzard (Buteo buteo) is a highly aggressive, territorial bird of prey that interacts strongly with its intra- and interspecific competitors. We propose and use random matrix theory to quantify the strength and range of repulsion as a function of the buzzard population density, thus providing a novel approach to model density dependence. As an indicator of territorial behaviour, we perform a large-scale analysis of the distribution of buzzard nests in an area of 300 square kilometres around the Teutoburger Wald around Bielefeld, as gathered in the years2000--2019, are compared with Ginibre random matrix ensembles as well as the Poisson spacing distributionin two dimensions.