Habitat Selection

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The concept of good habitat is familiar to most people.  It is possible to determine the relative quality of the  different habitats from the abundance of animals in them.  Usually, animals are most abundant where the habitat quality  is best, in lesser numbers where the habitat is poor, and  absent from totally unsuitable habitat. In the aquatic  environment, instream habitat usually refers to the physical  habitat - water velocity, depth, substrate, and perhaps  cover.

HabSel provides a series of linked procedures to:

·        display histograms of habitat use, availability, and suitability,

·        to fit kernel smoothed curves to these data and,

·        standardize maximum values to 1 for use in habitat suitability analyses

·        fit generalized additive models and test interactions.

Both histograms and kernel density plots can be used to display frequency  of habitat use and availability.

Data can be analyzed by groups, such as habitat types, fish sizes, or river systems.

Frequency histograms can be derived for any habitat variable, numeric or categorical.

The steps in a typical analysis are:

·        open file  of species and environmental data

·        analysis of habitat suitability either as counts, weighted counts or  abundance data

·        compare with habitat availability if required