Data from: Movement is the glue connecting home ranges and habitat selection

1. Animal space use has been studied by focusing either on geographic
(e.g. home ranges, species' distribution) or on environmental (e.g.
habitat use and selection) space. However, all patterns of space use
emerge from individual movements, which are the primary means by which
animals change their environment. 2. Individuals increase their use of a
given area by adjusting two key movement components: the duration of their
visit and/or the frequency of revisits. Thus, in spatially heterogeneous
environments, animals exploit known, high-quality resource areas by
increasing their residence time (RT) in and/or decreasing their time to
return (TtoR) to these areas. We expected that spatial variation in these
two movement properties should lead to observed patterns of space use in
both geographic and environmental spaces. We derived a set of nine
predictions linking spatial distribution of movement properties to
emerging space-use patterns. We predicted that, at a given scale, high
variation in RT and TtoR among habitats leads to strong habitat selection
and that long RT and short TtoR result in a small home range size. 3. We
tested these predictions using moose (Alces alces) GPS tracking data. We
first modelled the relationship between landscape characteristics and
movement properties. Then, we investigated how the spatial distribution of
predicted movement properties (i.e. spatial autocorrelation, mean, and
variance of RT and TtoR) influences home range size and hierarchical
habitat selection. 4. In landscapes with high spatial autocorrelation of
RT and TtoR, a high variation in both RT and TtoR occurred in home ranges.
As expected, home range location was highly selective in such landscapes
(i.e. second-order habitat selection); RT was higher and TtoR lower within
the selected home range than outside, and moose home ranges were small.
Within home ranges, a higher variation in both RT and TtoR was associated
with higher selectivity among habitat types (i.e. third-order habitat
selection). 5. Our findings show how patterns of geographic and
environmental space use correspond to the two sides of a coin, linked by
movement responses of individuals to environmental heterogeneity. By
demonstrating the potential to assess the consequences of altering RT or
TtoR (e.g. through human disturbance or climatic changes) on home range
size and habitat selection, our work sets the basis for new theoretical
and methodological advances in movement ecology