Animal Home Ranges and Territories and Home Range Estimators - Research Techniques in Animal Ecology - page 90

Figure 3.5 The 95% fixed kernel home range for adult female black bear 61 in 1983. Bear 61's
home range nearly surrounds a large, central area not designated as her home range. The thin dot-
ted line marks the study area border.
area that she used in 1983 but may not accurately define the area that she actu-
ally considered to be her home range in 1983.
Third, related to the second problem, kernel estimators estimate the prob-
ability that an animal will be in any part of its home range but do not estimate
how important that part of the home range is to the animal. For researchers
asking questions related to time or studying animals for whom time and
importance coincide, no problem exists because home range estimators pro-
vide probabilities for use of space or, alternatively, probabilities for extent of
time in given areas. This aspect of home range estimators is a problem for
researchers interested in the underlying importance of habitats or landscape
characteristics when time and importance may not coincide. Some parts of a
home range that are used little may be very important because they contain a
limiting resource needed only at low levels of use. If time and importance do
not coincide, kernel estimators (and all other estimators) do not estimate
importance accurately.