Abstract

MONTENEGRO, Javier  and  ACOSTA, Alberto. Innovatite program for habitat use and preference evaluation. Univ. Sci. [online]. 2008, vol.13, n.2, pp.208-219. ISSN 0122-7483.

The species habitat preference is an important topic in biology, ecology, evolution, and management and conservation of biodiversity, since it allows us to determine the resources and conditions required by species for survival, reproduction and persistence through time. This topic is high priority due to the rapid climatic changes that, according to model predictions, will directly or indirectly affect the resources, conditions and therefore its habitat, modifying its abundance, spatial distribution, and local probability of extinction. At the moment this topic is difficult to approach, because the existing literature is disperse, there are theoretical contradictions, and mathematical methods to infer preference are repetitive, and have not been ranked. Considering these difficulties, HaviStat© has been created. This program can perform the majority of mathematical, statistical, and graphical procedures required to infer habitat use, selection, preference or resources (18 indices and 2 confidence intervals), and niche amplitude for any species (4 indices and 2 confidence intervals). The program was made on Visual Basic® language on the Microsoft Office Excel® platform. It is the result of an exhaustive literature review, where the most relevant index were selected and compiled. Complementary literature will help researchers to set up experimental designs, and to know the importance of the results; also, it will bring basic tools to understand how the index work and when they must be applied.

Keywords : habitat; HaviStat©; program; preference; resources; selection; use.

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