A plain language review and guidance for modeling animal habitat-selection

Brian Daniel Gerber, Casey Setash, Jacob S Ivan, Joseph Northrup

Animal habitat selection is the process of how individual organisms disproportionately use habitat compared to what is available to them. Understanding habitat selection is important for the study of ecology and conservation. However, learning the foundations of making inference or prediction on animal habitat selection can be quite challenging. Foremost, the literature is large and highly technical. We summarize important considerations in getting the basics right, pointing to key papers in the modern literature. We also demonstrate many of these considerations in an online vignette and associated code. We hope this work will help jumpstart student and practitioner learning about habitat selection modeling, provide guidance when reviewing analyses, and lead to rigorous ecological studies that help guide the management and conservation of animal populations.