Simple metrics to characterize inter-individual and temporal variation in habitat selection behaviour

1. Individual variation in habitat selection and movement behavior is receiving growing attention, but primarily with respect to characterizing behaviors in different contexts as opposed to decomposing structure in behavior within populations. This focus may be limiting advances in understanding the diversity of individual behavior and its influence on population organization. We propose a framework for characterizing variation in space-use behavior with the aim of advancing interpretation of its form and function.
2. Using outputs from integrated Step Selection Analyses of 20 years of telemetry data from African elephants (Loxodonta Africana), we developed four metrics characterizing differentiation in resource selection behavior within a population [specialization (magnitude of the response independent of direction), heterogeneity (inter-individual variation), consistency (temporal shift in response) and reversal (frequency of directional changes in the response)].
3. We contrast insi...