The 4th dimension in animal movement: The effect of temporal resolution
and landscape configuration in habitat selection analyses
Abstract
1: Understanding how animals use their habitat is essential to
understand their biology and support conservation efforts. Technological
advances in tracking technologies allow us to follow animals at
increasingly fine temporal resolutions. Yet, how tracking devices’
sampling intervals impact results remains unclear, as well as which
method to use. 2: Using simulations and empirical data from wild boars
tracked in Germany, we systematically examine how temporal resolution of
movement data in interaction with spatial autocorrelation of the
landscape affects the outcomes of two common techniques for analyzing
habitat selection: Resource Selection Analysis (RSA) and an
autocorrelation-informed weighted derivate (wRSA) as well as integrated
Step Selection Analysis (iSSA). Each method differs in the definition of
“available” locations (RSA) and implementation of the movement model
during parameter estimation (iSSA). 3: Our simulations suggested that
landscape autocorrelation has a much stronger effect on the estimated
selection coefficients and their variability than the sampling interval.
Higher sampling intervals (i.e. longer time between steps) are required
for landscapes with high autocorrelation, enabling the animal to
experience enough variability in clumped landscapes. Short sampling
intervals generally led to higher variability and fewer statistically
significant estimates (in particular for wRSA). 4: Our results
complement recent attempts to outline a coherent framework for habitat
selection analyses and to explain them to practitioners. We further
contribute to these efforts by assessing the sensitivity of two commonly
used methods, RSA and iSSA, to the changes in sampling interval of
movement data. We expect our findings to further raise awareness of
pitfalls underlying comparison of estimated selection coefficients
obtained in different studies and to assist movement ecologists in
choosing the appropriate method for habitat selection analysis.