Michelot, T., Blackwell, P.G. and Matthiopoulos, J. (2019) Linking resource selection and step selection models for habitat preferences in animals. Ecology, 100 (1). e02452. ISSN 1939-9170
Abstract
The two dominant approaches for the analysis of species–habitat associations in animals have been shown to reach divergent conclusions. Models fitted from the viewpoint of an individual (step selection functions), once scaled up, do not agree with models fitted from a population viewpoint (resource selection functions [RSFs]). We explain this fundamental incompatibility, and propose a solution by introducing to the animal movement field a novel use for the well‐known family of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC ) algorithms. By design, the step selection rules of MCMC lead to a steady‐state distribution that coincides with a given underlying function: the target distribution. We therefore propose an analogy between the movements of an animal and the movements of an MCMC sampler, to guarantee convergence of the step selection rules to the parameters underlying the population's utilization distribution. We introduce a rejection‐free MCMC algorithm, the local Gibbs sampler, that better resembles real animal movement, and discuss the wide range of biological assumptions that it can accommodate. We illustrate our method with simulations on a known utilization distribution, and show theoretically and empirically that locations simulated from the local Gibbs sampler give rise to the correct RSF. Using simulated data, we demonstrate how this framework can be used to estimate resource selection and movement parameters.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 The Authors Ecology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Ecological Society of America. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | animal movement; habitat selection; Markov chain Monte Carlo; resource selection function; space use; step selection function; utilization distribution |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Mathematics and Statistics (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 27 Sep 2017 14:38 |
Last Modified: | 14 Jul 2020 09:28 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley Periodicals, Inc. |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/ecy.2452 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:121030 |