Habitat Selection: Implications for Monitoring, Management, and Conservation

Abstract

Habitat selection is an important process that affects the distribution and abundance of organisms, and habitat selection theory is one of the flagships of theoretical ecology. Because of the importance of habitat selection in natural ecosystems and the successful history of the theoretical concepts, it has been suggested that habitat selection theory can inform decision-making in population monitoring and solve management and conservation problems. In this paper I further emphasize the potential for habitat selection theory to be a useful framework to address fundamental problems of relevance for monitoring, management, and conservation. I also identify what I perceive as important gaps in our knowledge and weaknesses of current habitat selection theory when approaching real-world problems.

Keywords:

• habitat selection
• ideal free distribution
• monitoring
• conservation
• harvesting
• dispersal
• spatial population dynamics