Coupling Principal Component Analysis and GIS to map deer habitats
Nathalie Pettorelli, Stephane Dray & Daniel Maillard
Pettorelli, N., Dray, S. & Maillard, D. 2005: Coupling Principal Component Analysis and GIS to map deer habitats. - Wildl. Biol. 11: 363-270.
We aimed to define at a relevant scale the spatial pattern of major vegetation types available to deer in order to characterise habitat quality variations within our population area. We analysed data on the timber stand and the shrub layer collected in 1993 in the 2,614 ha Chizé reserve in western France. Multidimensional analyses (Principal Component Analysis and biplot) and a Geographic Information System (GIS) were used to extract most of the variation in vegetation data collected at the 4-ha resolution. At the timber stand level, two vegetation types occurred within the reserve: an oak Quercus sp. stand in the north, and a beech Fagus sylvatica stand in the south. This classification accounted for 29.6% of the total variability of the timber stand data base. At the shrub layer scale, three vegetation types were distinguished: hornbeam Carpinus betulus dominated coppices in the northeast part of the oak stand, maple Acer sp. dominated coppices in the northwest part of the oak stand, and no shrub layer in the beech stand in the south. This classification accounted for 32% of the total variability of the shrub layer data base. The coupled use of multivariate analysis and GIS allowed us to assess classification of forest habitats and appears promising for use in wildlife management and research purposes. This simple and robust tool allows users to account for site variability, and can provide satisfactory spatial representations of habitat potential at multiple scales.
Key words: Capreolus capreolus, Chizé reserve, habitat classification, management, multidimensional statistics
Nathalie Pettorelli* & Stephane Dray**, Unité Mixte de Recherche N°5558 «Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive », Bâtiment 711, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, 43 Boulevard du 11 novembre 1918, 69622 Villeurbanne Cedex, France - e-mail addresses: nathalie.pettorelli@bio.uio.no (Nathalie Pettorelli); stephane.dray@umontreal.ca (Stephane Dray)
Daniel Maillard, Office National de la Chasse et de la Faune Sauvage, 95 Rue Pierre Flourens, 34098 Montpellier Cedex 5, France - e-mail: d.maillard@oncfs.gouv.fr
Present addresses:
*Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, Department of Biology, University of Oslo, PO Box 1050 Blindern, N-0316 Oslo, Norway
**Department of Biological Sciences, University of Montréal, C.P. 6128, Montréal, Québec H3C 3J7, Canada
Corresponding author: Nathalie Pettorelli
Article accepted for publication in Game and Wildlife Science (GWS) prior to the merger between Wildlife Biology and GWS. Therefore, this article has not been peer-reviewed by Wildlife Biology Associate Editors