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Animal
Habitat and Space Use
Animals
live in a variety of habitats and actively move through heterogeneous
landscapes at different spatial and temporal scales. For instance,
animals walk or fly on a daily basis within and across habitat patches,
migrate between continents, and expand or contract their geographic
ranges due to changing climatic conditions. I am interested
in understanding animal habitat and space use, especially in quantifying
how environmental factors (e.g. climate, landcover, and habitat structure)
and resource availability (e.g. food, nesting sites etc.) control
the spatial occurrence and movement behavior of animals. Telemetry
methods, remote sensing data derived from satellites, Geographic Information
Systems (GIS), and ecoinformatic tools are increasingly becoming important
for quantifying and predicting the distribution of animals across
space and time and help to gain a better understanding of animal habitat
and space use. This basic research is directly linked to applied issues
and has important implications for conservation, agriculture, and
landscape ecological management.
Keywords:
animal movement, dispersal, habitat fragmentation, landscape ecology,
niche.
Selected
publications:
- Kissling,
W.D., Fernandez, N. & Paruelo, J.M. (2009): Spatial risk
assessment of livestock exposure to pumas in Patagonia, Argentina.
Ecography 32: 807–817. [Abstract]
- Hagen, M.,
Wikelski, M. & Kissling, W.D. (2011): Space use of bumblebees
(Bombus spp.) revealed by radio-tracking. PLoS ONE
6: e19997. [Free
access]
- Hagen, M.,
Kissling, W.D., Rasmussen, C., de Aguiar, M.A.M., Brown,
L., Carstensen, D.W., Alves-Dos-Santos, I., Dupont, Y.L., Edwards,
F.K., Genini, J., Guimarães Jr., P.R., Jenkins, G.B., Jordano,
P., Kaiser-Bunbury, C.N., Ledger, M., Maia, K.P., Marquitti, F.M.D.,
McLaughlin, O., Morellato, L.P.C., O'Gorman, E.J., Trøjelsgaard,
K., Tylianakis, J.M., Vidal, M.M., Woodward, G. & Olesen, J.M.
(2012): Biodiversity, species interactions and ecological networks
in a fragmented world. Advances in Ecological Research, in
press.
Figure:
New developments in radio telemetry methods allow the tracking of
large-bodied insects such as bumblebees to study their movement
behaviour and habitat use. (a) Transmitter attachment on
a Bombus terrestris individual, (b) nectar collecting
individual of Bombus terrestris with a transmitter attached,
and (c) Bombus terrestris individual with attached
transmitter, foraging on red clover (Trifolium pratense).
From Hagen et al. (2011) [Free
access].
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W.
Daniel Kissling
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