Behavioural Landscape Ecology of Birds: Scaling-up from Individuals to Populations / Écologie comportementale et du paysage des oiseaux: de l'individu à la population

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My long-term research objective is to quantify the influence of landscape structure on the movement and distribution patterns of species and individuals. According to theory, both the composition and the configuration of landscapes determine the spatial distribution of resources (e.g., food and mates) and predation risk, which in turn affect the sampling, selection, and use of habitats by animals through movement. So far, empirical progress has been made with respect to how landscape structure, defined in terms of the size, shape and isolation of habitat patches, affects the distribution of species or individuals. Yet, poor attention has been given as to how the influence of landscape structure (as defined above) is mediated by the distribution of specific resources and the distribution of interacting species or individuals. This lack of knowledge is likely responsible for the current poor performance of landscape metrics at predicting key ecological processes acting at the landscape scale, such as dispersal and habitat selection. Over the next 5 years, my students and I will focus on the role of landscape structure, including the spatially-explicit distribution of resources, on the movement, habitat use, resource defence and mating of individual wild birds.