Does weather drive habitat use and movement of a non-migratory bird?

Climate change is predicted to increase the intensity and frequency of weather extremes (e.g., extreme heat and drought), which will likely affect wildlife species in significant ways. Maintaining landscape heterogeneity has been suggested as a potential conservation strategy to buffer animals from weather extremes. Because animal movement influences survival and population connectivity, understanding animal space use and movement in response to shifts in weather is useful for the conservation of wildlife. Non-migratory species are predicted to be more negatively affected by climate change because they have a limited ability to disperse to find resources. We studied the Northern Bobwhite (Colinus virginianus; hereafter, bobwhite) to understand how weather alters habitat use and movement of a non-migratory animal across a landscape. We collected telemetry locations on bobwhite across western Oklahoma during 2019–2020 and paired these data with meteorological and vegetation data. We analy..., ,