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Influence of the physical environment and conspecific aggression on the spatial arrangement of breeding grey seals

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StephensonMatthiopoulosHarwood2007-authorversion.pdf (157.3Kb)
Date
12/2007
Author
Harris, Catriona M
Matthiopoulos, Jason
Harwood, John
Keywords
Generalized additive models
GIS
Habitat suitability
Individual-based model
Pupping site selection
Spatial and temporal simulation modelling
Halichoerus-grypus
Site fidelity
North-Rona
Relating poulations
Landscape patterns
Models
Scotland
Distributions
Availability
QL Zoology
QH301 Biology
SDG 14 - Life Below Water
Metadata
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Abstract
Understanding the habitat requirements of a species for breeding is essential for its conservation, particularly if the availability of suitable habitat is a limiting factor for population growth. This is postulated to be the case for grey seals, one of the more abundant marine apex predators in northern European waters. In common with similar studies that have investigated the habitat preferences of breeding grey seals, we use abiotic (topographical, climatological) attributes but, unlike previous work, we also incorporate behavioural variables, particularly the occurrence of aggressive interactions between females and the presence of neighbouring seals. We used two Generalized Additive Models (GAM) in a sequential and iterative fashion. The first model links the occurrence of aggression at particular points in the colony to local topography derived from a Geographical Information System (GIS), presence of neighbouring seal pups and the day of the breeding season. The output of this GAM is used as one of the explanatory variables in a GAM of daily variation in the spatial distribution of births. Although proximity of a birth site to a water source and the presence of neighbouring seal pups both had significant influences on the distribution of newborn pups over time and space, at the scale of the study site it was found that simple rules could predict pup distribution more efficiently than a complex individual-based simulation model. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Citation
Harris , C M , Matthiopoulos , J & Harwood , J 2007 , ' Influence of the physical environment and conspecific aggression on the spatial arrangement of breeding grey seals ' , Ecological Informatics , vol. 2 , no. 4 , pp. 308-317 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2007.09.001
Publication
Ecological Informatics
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2007.09.001
ISSN
1574-9541
Type
Journal article
Rights
This is an author version of the article. The published version, (c)2010 Elsevier is available from http://www.sciencedirect.com
Collections
  • University of St Andrews Research
URL
http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=36348951407&partnerID=8YFLogxK
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1082

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