| William T Bean; Humboldt State University; bean@humboldt.edu; Robert Stafford, Xeronimo Castaneda, Madeline Cooper, Kelly Commons, Caylen Cummins, Dylan Schertz, Christopher Teague, Colton Wise |
| Movement is a fundamental process that shapes the distribution and abundance of wildlife. With the advent of GPS collars that can record animal locations at fine spatial and temporal scales, we have incredible power to understand how animals make decisions across these scales. Relying on GPS collar data from seven Tule elk (Cervus elaphus nannodes) in the Carrizo Plain National Monument, we used kernel density estimates and time-dependent local convex hulls (t-LoCoH) to examine 2nd and 3rd order habitat selection and movement at day, week, month, and seasonal scales at an individual- and herd-level. In this talk, we will present habitat suitability models developed from these approaches. Then, we will examine whether habitat suitability plays an important role in movement decisions, characterized by velocity, elongation, patch visitation rates and duration of visits. Finally, we will also explore when other factors (e.g. weather, topography, and life history events) are more important to understanding such decisions. |