Evaluating expert‐based habitat suitability information of terrestrial mammals with GPS‐tracking data

Abstract

Aim: Macroecological studies that require habitat suitability data for many species often derive this information from expert opinion. However, expert-based information is inherently subjective and thus prone to errors. The increasing availability of GPS tracking data offers opportunities to evaluate and supplement expert-based information with detailed empirical evidence. Here, we compared expert-based habitat suitability information from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) with habitat suitability information derived from GPS-tracking data of 1,498 individuals from 49 mammal species.

Ground‐based vegetation descriptions and remote sensing as complementary methods describing habitat requirements of a frugivorous primate in northern Madagascar: implications for forest restoration

“…While remote sensing information is widely used for habitat suitability analyses (e.g. Broekman et al ., 2022), it represents only proxies of structural or other vegetation prerequisites that actually define what makes a habitat suitable or not for arboreal mammals. Here, we exemplify differences between structural information based on classical vegetation descriptions and plant productivity information derived from satellite images in a study of habitat utilization of crowned lemurs ( Eulemur coronatus ) in a highly degraded forest habitat of northern Madagascar.…”