Integrated step selection analysis: bridging the gap between resource selection and animal movement

Summary A resource selection function is a model of the likelihood that an available spatial unit will be used by an animal, given its resource value. But how do we appropriately define availability? Step selection analysis deals with this problem at the scale of the observed positional data, by matching each ‘used step’ (connecting two consecutive observed positions of the animal) with a set of ‘available steps’ randomly sampled from a distribution of observed steps or their characteristics. Here we present a simple extension to this approach, termed integrated step selection analysis ( iSSA ), which relaxes the implicit assumption that observed movement attributes (i.e. velocities and their temporal…

• AC
  Alberta Conservation Association
• CR
  Canada Research Chairs
• KT
  Killam Trusts
• NS
  Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada