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Resource Selection by Animals has been written as a guide to the design and analysis of field studies of resource selection, concentrating primarily on statistical aspects of the comparison of the use and availability of resources of different types. The intended audience is field ecologists in general and, in particular, wildlife and fisheries biologists who are attempting to measure the extent to which real animal populations are selective in their choice of food and habitat. As such, the authors have made no attempt to address those aspects of theoretical ecology that are concerned with how animals might choose their resources if they acted in an optimal manner. Resource Selection by Animals is based on the concept of a resource selection function (RSF), where this is a function of characteristics measured on resource units such that its value for a unit is proportional to the probability of that unit being used. The authors argue that this concept leads to a unified theory for the analysis and interpretation of data on resource selection and can replace many ad hoc statistical methods that have been used in the past.
- Introduction to resource selection studies
- Examples of the use of resource selection functions
- Statistical modelling procedures
- Studies with resources defined by several categories
- Estimating a resource selection probability function from a census of resource units using logistic regression
- Estimating a resource selection probability function from a census of resource units at several points in time using the proportional hazards model
- Estimating a resource selection function from samples of resource units using proportional hazards and log-linear models
- Estimating a resource selection function from two samples of resource units using logistic regression and discriminant function methods
- General log-linear modelling
- Analysis of the amount of use
- The comparison of selection for different types of resource units
Reviews of the first edition:
"Bryan Manly has more experience than most in guiding the unwary biologist through unchartered statistical territory [...] this book will prove enlightening to the mathematically-minded biologist [...]"
– Biodiversity and Conservation
"The authors [...] consider with a lot of care various types of design allowing to assess to which degree a resource is selected, with reference to its availability [...] Classification is illustrated with a few detailed examples from the literature, for which data are given. These examples are followed throughout the book, which makes the reading easy and pleasant [...] This book certainly meets its subtitle by giving a thorough and comprehensive overview of 'statistical design and analysis for field studies' of resource selection."
– Acta Oecologia
