Special Issue: Conservation BehaviourA simple statistical guide for the analysis of behaviour when data are constrained due to practical or ethical reasons
Section snippets
Limited sample size
Limited sample size is one of the most obvious constraints that confronts animal behaviourists (Taborsky, 2010), especially when working on conservation-related issues (Bradshaw and Brook, 2010, Martinez-Abrain, 2014). For a variety of reasons that arise from the special characteristics of the studied species, in combination with the difficulty of assaying behaviours and ethical policies, it is impossible to acquire an ideal sample that would be representative of the real world. This is a
Noninvasive sampling methods: measurement error for surrogate variables
It is often required to use noninvasive methods for sampling when the model species is to be protected, but this is also becoming preferable practice in the modern study of animal behaviour for ethical reasons (Mench, 2000). Several methods are now available that permit the estimation of certain physiological traits (such as hormone levels, parasite load, heart rate, metabolic status, immunocompetence) through surrogate variables that help reduce or completely eliminate the stress that animals
Unknown identity of subjects
Given the ethical and practical concerns regarding the capture of rare or endangered species of animals, conservation biologists cannot always directly mark individuals, and in such cases they have to make behavioural observations without knowing the identity of the focal animals. Behaviour is a trait that, unlike many morphological or physiological traits, permits data collection from a distance (using binoculars or video cameras) to some extent. Therefore, if reliable means of identifying
Mixed Modelling: the Specific Hierarchical Structure of Behavioural Data
Studying the adaptive role of behaviour in the light of the rapidly and unpredictably changing environment may be interesting from a conservation aspect, as such adaptation processes are highly relevant under the recently occurring climatic changes. An individual's behaviour can change rapidly from moment to moment, and this plasticity offers a mean by which the animal can quickly react to an emerging stress factor in the environment (Dingemanse, Kazem, Réale, & Wright, 2010). Given that quick
Conclusions
Here I have provided an overview on various statistical methods that can be useful for conservation biologists and animal behaviourists when analysing behavioural data that are often loaded with various constraints. The common theme appearing in this discussion is that some aspects of these constraints should be regarded as sources of noise that generate uncertainty around the estimated parameters (e.g. small sample size, unknown identity of subjects). These uncertainties are inherent
Acknowledgments
I thank E. Fernández-Juricic and B. A. Schulte for inviting me to contribute to the Special Issue on Conservation Behaviour. I am also grateful to one anonymous referee and Matthew Symonds for their constructive comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. During this study, the author was supported by funds from the Spanish government within the frame of the Plan Nacional Programme (no. CGL2012- 38262 and no. CGL2012-40026-C02-01) and from the National Research, Development and Innovation
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