Modeling habitat selection of actively dispersing organisms using statistical decision theory and its implications for species conservation

Background/Question/Methods

Understanding habitat selection behaviors and related decisions of organisms is vitally important for conservation given that it will provide insight into how organisms respond to the environment as it pertains to habitat fragmentation, destruction and alteration.  I propose to study the habitat selection behaviors of grassland birds using statistical decision theory to model how settlement decision behaviors change with concomitant changes in the landscape.  The use of SDT in examining animal behavior started with McNamara and Houston and support for its usage as a quantitative framework from which to analyze decision making in organisms continues to grow.  Its uses are varied, but have been primarily limited to studying foraging decisions, stopover behavior in long distance migratory birds and whether natural selection produces rational decision processes. The use of statistical decision theory represents a novel way to model habitat selection and represents a key step towards improving our understanding of the behavioral factors related to settlement decisions. These advancements could improve how behavior is incorporated into, and ultimately the predictions of spatially explicit population models, which are crucial for conservation planning efforts. 

Results/Conclusions

Preliminary results indicate that grassland birds favor settling in their breeding habitat without first prospecting available habitats for settlement cues, such as quality of current breeding habitat, but rather rely on previous breeding experience when making settlement decisions.  There is a need to conduct the analysis within a greater range of landscape change, i.e. changing the proportions of available habitat types in the landscape, to determine if this pattern holds true and what this ultimately means for the fitness of the breeding population of birds.