Importance of movement constraints in habitat selection studies.

• Main Authors: Jodie Martin, Clément Calenge, Pierre-Yves Quenette, Dominique Allainé
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2008
• Subjects: Ursus arctos
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.1055.1819; http://bearproject.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/2008-Martin-et-al-Ecol-Model.pdf

Ecological niche Movement paths Trajectories Ursus arctos Habitat selection a b s t r a c t The aim of this study is to empirically illustrate the importance of taking movement constraints into account when testing for habitat selection with telemetry data. Global Positioning System relocations of two Scandinavian brown bears were used to compare the results of two different tests of habitat selection by the bears within their home range. Both relied on the comparison of observed dataset with datasets simulated under the hypothesis of random habitat use. The first analysis did not take movement constraints into account (simulations were carried out by randomly distributing a set of points in the home range) whereas the second analysis accounted for these constraints (simulations were carried out by building random trajectories in the home range). The results for the two analyses showed contrasted results. Therefore, not accounting for movement constraints in analyses may result in a misleading biological interpretation. Autocorrelation between relocations is not undesirable: it contains information about ecological processes that should be integrated in habitat selection analyses. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Introduction During the last decade, the Global Positioning System (GPS) has been used increasingly by biologists to study the habitat selection by animals. The study of habitat selection with this kind of data implies a comparison between the habitat used by this animal and a null model describing the habitat that would have been used under the hypothesis that no habitat selection occurs (random habitat use