Analyzing habitat selection in animals without well-defined home ranges

Summary

Recently, S. M. Arthur and colleagues presented a statistical framework that allows habitat availability to change for each observation of the animal, thus making habitat use analysis possible when the habitat changes or it is difficult to determine a home range for each individual. I here modify their method by letting habitat availability vary on a continuous scale, rather than defining all habitat within a circle as equally available. The modified method also makes it possible to deal with continuously varying time intervals between observations and the influence of environmental variables (e.g., temperature, time of day) on movement activity. As an example, I use this method to analyse habitat selection of a bush-cricket (the wart-biter, Decticus verrucivorus).