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- Title
Building better wildlife-habitat models
- Authors
Baxter, G. S.; Beutel, T. S.; Beeton, R. J. S.
- Abstract
Wildlife-habitat models are an important tool in wildlife managementtoday, and by far the majority of these predict aspects of species distribution (abundance or presence) as a proxy measure of habitat quality. Unfortunately, few are tested on independent data, and of thosethat are, few show useful predictive skill. We demonstrate that six critical assumptions underlie distribution based wildlife-habitat models, all of which must be valid for the model to predict habitat quality. We outline these assumptions in a meta-model, and discuss methods for their validation. Even where all six assumptions show a high level of validity, there is still a strong likelihood that the model will not predict habitat quality. However, the meta-model does suggest habitat quality can be predicted more accurately if distributional data are ignored, and variables more indicative of habitat quality are modelled instead.
- Subjects
WILDLIFE management; HABITATS; SPECIES distribution
- Publication
Ecography, 1999, Vol 22, Issue 2, p219
- ISSN
0906-7590
- Publication type
Article