PARENT SESSION
Friday, August 11, 8:00-11:30 am
COS 108 - Species movement and dispersal
L-5, L-6, L-7, Lobby Level, Cook Convention Center
Presiders: A Boyle
A predictive, dynamical theory of animal space use: beyond resource selection analysis.
Moorcroft, Paul*,1, Lewis, Mark2, Robert, Crabtree3, 1 Harvard University, Cambridge, MA2 University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada3 Yellowstone Ecological Research Center, Bozeman, MT
ABSTRACT- Currently, the principal methodology for analyzing the underlying determinants of animal home range patterns is resource selection analysis (RSA), a spatially implicit approach that examines the relative frequencies of animal relocations in relation to landscape attributes. In this analysis, we adopt an alternative approach, using a series of mechanistic home range models to analyze observed patterns of territorial space-use by coyote packs in the heterogeneous landscape of Yellowstone National Park. Unlike RSAs, mechanistic home range models are derived from stochastic individual-based models of movement behavior, and yield spatially-explicit predictions for patterns of space-use by individuals. As we show here, mechanistic home range models can be fitted to observed patterns of relocations using maximum likelihood, and thereby used to elucidate the underlying causes of animal space-use, incorporating both movement responses to underlying landscape heterogeneities and the effects of behavioral interactions between individuals. We then show how the fitted models can be verified against measurements of fine-scale movement behavior, and can be used to correctly predict observed shifts in the patterns of coyote space-use that occur in response to environmental and demographic perturbation.
Key words: animal movement, coyote, home range patterns