Comparing terrain and vegetation-based visibility for explaining sable flight behaviour in a Southern African savanna |
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| Authors: | Henry Ndaimani Amon Murwira Shakkie Kativu |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Geography and Environmental Science , University of Zimbabwe, PO Box MP 167 , Harare , Zimbabwe hndaimani@science.uz.ac.zw;3. Department of Geography and Environmental Science , University of Zimbabwe, PO Box MP 167 , Harare , Zimbabwe;4. Biological Sciences Department, Tropical Resource and Ecology Centre, University of Zimbabwe , PO Box MP 167, Harare , Zimbabwe |
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| Abstract: | In this study, we tested whether terrain-based visibility modelled from a remotely sensed ASTER Digital Elevation Model (DEM) explains sable flight initiation distance (FID) better than vegetation-based visibility measured in the field. We also tested whether the effect of hunting on sable FID varies with spatial scale. We first performed a linear regression analysis relating FID to standardized coefficients of both vegetation- and terrain-based visibility where the variable with the larger coefficient was the better predictor of FID. We latter performed an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) comparing the slopes relating FID to both measures of visibility, first at the large scale and later at the small scale within the hunting area. Our results suggest that remotely sensed terrain-based visibility predicts the FID of sable better than vegetation-based visibility. We also found that the effect of hunting on sable FID varies with spatial scale. |
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| Keywords: | ASTER DEM flight initiation distance GIS remote sensing viewshed |
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