Forecasting Animal Distribution through Individual Habitat Selection: Insights for Population Inference and Transferable Predictions

Species distribution and habitat selection models frequently use data collected from a small geographic area over a short window of time to extrapolate patterns of relative abundance to unobserved areas or periods of time. However, these types of models often poorly predict how animals will use habitat beyond the place and time of data collection because space-use behaviors vary between individuals and are context-dependent. Here, we present a modelling workflow to advance predictive distribution performance by explicitly accounting for individual variability in habitat selection behavior and dependence on environmental context. Using global positioning system (GPS) data collected from 238 individual pronghorn, (Antilocapra americana), across 3 years in Utah, we combine individual-year-season-specific exponential habitat-selection models with weighted mixed-effects regressions to both draw inference about the drivers of habitat selection and predict space-use in areas/times where/when pronghorn were not monitored. We found a tremendous amount of variation in both the magnitude and direction of habitat selection behavior across seasons, but also across individuals, geographic regions, and years. We were able to attribute portions of this variation to season, movement strategy, sex, and regional variability in resources, conditions, and risks. We were also able to partition residual variation into inter- and intra-individual components. We then used the results to predict population-level, spatially and temporally dynamic, habitat-selection coefficients across Utah, resulting in a temporally dynamic map of pronghorn distribution at a 30x30m resolution but an extent of 220,000km2. We believe our transferable workflow can provide managers and researchers alike a way to turn limitations of traditional RSF models - variability in habitat selection - into a tool to improve understanding and predicting animal distribution across space and time.