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Simple metrics to characterize inter-individual and temporal variation in habitat selection behaviour
Guillaume Bastille-Rousseau1,2,3, George Wittemyer3,4
1Cooperative Wildlife Research Laboratory, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, USA.
The Journal of Animal Ecology
|May 10, 2022
Summary
Understanding individual variation in animal behavior is key. New metrics reveal how specialization and heterogeneity in resource selection explain complex patterns in African elephant (Loxodonta africana) space use, offering insights beyond population averages.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Animal Behavior
- Conservation Biology
Background:
- Individual variation in habitat selection and movement is increasingly studied, but often focuses on different contexts rather than population-level behavioral structure.
- This limited focus may hinder understanding of behavioral diversity and its impact on population organization.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose a novel framework for characterizing variation in space-use behavior to advance the interpretation of its form and function.
- To develop and apply metrics that quantify individual differences in resource selection within a population.
Main Methods:
- Utilized integrated step-selection analyses on 20 years of telemetry data from African elephants (Loxodonta africana).
- Developed four metrics: specialization, heterogeneity, consistency, and reversal, to characterize resource selection differentiation.
- Employed principal component analyses (PCAs) and random forest classification to evaluate the metrics' ability to capture seasonal shifts in resource selection.
Main Results:
- Population-average responses can obscure complex individual variations in behavior for certain covariates.
- The developed metrics, particularly specialization and heterogeneity, provided additional, structurally important information on elephant resource selection patterns beyond mean population responses.
- Specialization emerged as a more effective descriptor of seasonal resource selection differences than population averages for elephants.
Conclusions:
- The proposed metrics offer a new conceptual approach to understanding variation in space-use behavior, including habitat selection and movement.
- These metrics explicitly detail how behavioral variation is structured among individuals and over time, facilitating comparative studies.
- This framework aids in diagnosing the drivers of individual-level variability within a population and offers insights into overlooked aspects of animal behavior.
