The Spatial Scaling Of Habitat Selection By African Elephants. (2010)

1. Understanding and accurately predicting the spatial patterns of habitat use by organisms is important for ecological research, biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management. However,?this understanding is complicated by the effects of spatial scale, because the scale of analysis affects the quantification of species–environment relationships. 2. We therefore assessed the influence of environmental context (i.e. the characteristics of the landscape?surrounding a site), varied over a large range of scales (i.e. ambit radii around focal sites), on the analysis and prediction of habitat selection by African elephants in Kruger National Park,?South Africa.