Analysis of local habitat selection and large-scale attraction/avoidance based on animal tracking data: is there a single best method?

BACKGROUND

New wildlife telemetry and tracking technologies have become available in the last decade, leading to a large increase in the volume and resolution of animal tracking data. These technical developments have been accompanied by various statistical tools aimed at analysing the data obtained by these methods.

METHODS

We used simulated habitat and tracking data to compare some of the different statistical methods frequently used to infer local resource selection and large-scale attraction/avoidance from tracking data. Notably, we compared spatial logistic regression models (SLRMs), spatio-temporal point process models (ST-PPMs), step selection models (SSMs), and integrated step selection models (iSSMs) and their interplay with habitat and animal movement properties in terms of statistical hypothesis testing.

RESULTS

We demonstrated that only iSSMs and ST-PPMs showed nominal type I error rates in all studied cases, whereas SSMs may slightly and SLRMs may frequently and strongly exceed these levels. iSSMs appeared to have on average a more robust and higher statistical power than ST-PPMs.

CONCLUSIONS

Based on our results, we recommend the use of iSSMs to infer habitat selection or large-scale attraction/avoidance from animal tracking data. Further advantages over other approaches include short computation times, predictive capacity, and the possibility of deriving mechanistic movement models.