Using a data-constrained model of home range establishment to predict abundance in spatially heterogeneous habitats.

ABSTRACT: Mechanistic modelling approaches that explicitly translate from individual-scale resource selection to the distribution and abundance of a larger population may be better suited to predicting responses to spatially heterogeneous habitat alteration than commonly-used regression models. We developed an individual-based model of home range establishment that, given a mapped distribution of local habitat values, estimates species abundance by simulating the number and position of viable home ranges that can be maintained across a spatially heterogeneous area. We estimated parameters for this model from data on red-backed vole (Myodes gapperi) abundances in 31 boreal forest sites in Ontario, Canada. The home range model had considerably more support from these data than both non-spatial regress

SUBMITTER: Vanderwel MC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3398050 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature