ZOOL40490 Wildlife Habitat Modelling for Ecology and Conservation

Academic Year 2022/2023

This module provides a unique opportunity for students to explore the concepts of habitat modelling and acquire the required skills to analyse species presence data. Such spatial data can be gathered for different species across taxa (from trees to large mammals through invertebrates) and with different techniques and sampling designs (plots, visual observations, satellite telemetry data, museum records, preference trials, etc.). Using recent advances with habitat modelling – namely, resource selection functions and step selection functions – students will learn how to build a habitat suitability model, describe species habitat selection, and forecast hotspots of connectivity or species core areas that need special conservation attention. The techniques taught in this module have clear applications in species ecology, conservation and management. Special focus will be given to mammal movement data, but the skills acquired in this course can be used to model any presence data (including plants). Landscape connectivity describes how the movement of animals relates to landscape structure. The way in which movement among populations is affected by environmental conditions is important for predicting the effects of habitat fragmentation, and for defining conservation corridors, and this class will provide students with the skills needed to solve these challenging tasks. Finally, predictive models taught in this class can be used to predict future scenarios of species occupancy based on forecasted climate change. Students should have some familiarity with R and GIS (ArcMap or similar software).