Theory 18/Animal movement/GPS telemetry
Movement Is a Sequence of Decisions
The claim
Habitat selection is set by the ratio of step length to the scale at which resources change, so an animal appears selective or indifferent depending only on the sampling interval.
01Mechanism
Selection is measured relative to available habitat; the availability set depends on how far the animal could have moved in the interval.
02Prediction
Selection strength should depend on sampling interval in a predictable way.
03Refutation
Selection independent of interval would remove the scale argument.
04What makes it checkable
High-frequency GPS now records steps short enough to match resource scales, which earlier VHF fixes could not resolve.
05Why it was not testable before
Fixes every few days were longer than the decisions being studied.