Animal Selection and Movement Analysis: Finding Missed Connections

• Author / Creator

  Marley, Jessa

• In movement ecology, many methods currently exist for analyzing and estimat- ing animal movement patterns and selection for habitat types. However, the accuracy of the estimates for quantifying animal movement and selection are difficult to determine, especially when data is missing. In the literature, there are many techniques for simulating animal movement and determining animal selection, yet they are rarely used in tandem and, instead, simpler methods are favoured. In this study, we use continuous-time animal movement to es- timate selection in the presence of missing data. We first determine a model for continuous-time animal movement with influence of the environment on the selection of location as a small time-step limit of a step-selection process. Second, we propose an algorithm that uses the continuous-time model to fill in missing locations, and determines estimates for the movement and selection coefficients. The estimates are compared directly against existing methods for determining the selection coefficients. For data sets with extensive loss of in- formation, the proposed algorithm could provide more accurate estimates for animal selection of environmental characteristics.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Animal Movement
  • Resource selection functions
  • Stochastic differential equation

• Graduation date

  Fall 2020

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-by7s-3y36

• License

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