| Summary: | A quantification and modelling of harbour seal movement is required to predict the consequence of environmental change on both population distribution and movement connectivity. One approach to this challenge is a mechanistic individual based model (IBM) of seal movement. IBMs predict emergent behaviour from physiological capabilities and constraints using a set of biologically realistic behaviour rules within a simulated ecological environment. A simple prototype harbour seal IBM has been constructed with two currencies: energy and information (following Nabe-Nielsen et al., 2013). This model is now being developed and expanded. A major challenge is to find and parameterise the appropriate level of complexity that can be supported by data and yet can also provide realistic, defensible and useful outputs. The model is scalable such that it will be able to incorporate future information about individual response to anthropogenic disturbance and to the consequence of individual condition on population demographic parameters.
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