Seasonal trade-offs between resources and human activity shape habitat selection in reintroduced scimitar-horned oryx in the Sahel

The dataset supporting the study Seasonal trade-offs between resources and human activity shape habitat selection in reintroduced scimitar-horned oryx in the Sahel is organized into three main components. The environmental covariates include fire frequency rasters derived from MODIS Terra and Aqua imagery (MOD14A1/MYD14A1; 2004–2023; 1 km), topographic layers derived from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (30 m elevation, Topographic Position Index, and Topographic Convergence Index), a shrub density layer derived from Planet imagery and resampled to 30 m (MSAVI composite; 2021–2023), and a human presence probability raster representing the density of human activities within 5 km buffer zones around mapped settlements and infrastructure. The movement data (from scimitar-horned oryx GPS-collars) used for this study spans August 2016 to June 2024. These data were cleaned, resampled, and stratified into hot dry, cool dry, and rainy seasonal datasets, each associated with extracted and standardized environmental covariates for integrated Step Selection Function (iSSF) analyses. The iSSF outputs include 96 candidate models per season (288 total; stored as .rds files), AICc ranking tables, Relative Selection Strength (RSS) outputs for key covariates, and correlation matrices assessing predictor collinearity, all generated through a fully documented workflow of 26 R and Google Earth Engine scripts. The full analyses methodology was described in a Master thesis on Scimitar-horned oryx habitat selection defended august 2025 (https://libra.unine.ch/handle/20.500.14713/99677). GPS movement data and detailed settlement layers from the Ouadi Rimé–Ouadi Achim Faunal Reserve (OROAFR) are not publicly available because their disclosure could compromise the security of this threatened species and the ongoing reintroduction program.