Modelling habitat selection at multiple scales with multivariate geostatistics: an application to seabirds in open sea

Modelling habitat of species necessitates robust identification of relevant environmental variables linked to species distribution. To achieve this, we connect hierarchical patch theory and habitat modelling at multiple scales. We suggest discriminating between ‘circumstancial variables’ and ‘process variables’ on the basis of temporal evolution of the spatial links between species distribution and their environment at different scales. ‘Process...