Abstract
Home range estimates have been a key geographic unit for understanding
the link between animals and their habitat/resource choices since the
term was first described by Burt (1943) and formally quantified by Mohr
(1947)—who introduced minimum convex polygons (MCP) as a method to
delineate individual home ranges. Numerous methods have subsequently
been developed to estimate home ranges. However, depending on the method
used, widely different estimations can be found with the same animal
location dataset. With different home range delineations, inferences in
a heterogenous landscape about animal resource and habitat preferences
with different delineations can impact wildlife management. In this
research, time-based home range methods that account for autocorrelation
in animal movement were evaluated for accuracy in terms of area, shape,
and location in response to sample size and common wildlife GPS-point
patterns. These characteristics of home range estimation are important
for inferring animal habitat and resource use. Despite the improved
accuracy of time-based methods compared to traditional point-based
methods like MCP, location was often inaccurate for all GPS-point
patterns, as were shape and area for GPS-point patterns with
perforations (common for areas with large physical barriers like
mountains or lakes). These findings are important to wildlife managers
using time-based home range methods for analysis.