Birds and Habitat: The bird and its habitat: an overview of concepts

People have been describing habitat associations and asking deeper questions about how birds select their habitat, and the factors that determine their fine-scale distribution, for a long time (e.g. Brock, 1914; Grinnell, 1917a, b). This chapter outlines where concepts relating to habitat selection stand in the early twenty-first century. These concepts embrace a bewildering array of behavioural, ecological and evolutionary ideas. The processes involved in habitat selection have evolved to maximise fitness by ensuring that individuals can recognise and use suitable habitat. The notion of habitat quality (i.e. what constitutes ‘good’ or ‘best’ habitat) is therefore a central concept to which I have devoted a large part of the following chapter. Neither of these introductory chapters reviews the topics comprehensively, but the examples and references will, I hope, serve as useful background to the multi-faceted subject of habitat selection. I acknowledge the existence of some bias in the examples chosen because they lean towards terrestrial birds, especially those of forest and shrubland, reflecting my personal interests. Not surprisingly, there has been a gradual shift towards more quantitative research and theoretical models. But description remains important, both to document how birds continue to respond to the ever-changing world and to provide crucial information upon which conservation policies can be founded. The literature is voluminous. The review of habitat selection in birds by Olavi Hilden (1965) covers much of the early work and continues to be a highly relevant source of ideas and examples. More recent reviews and discussions of aspects of habitat selection include Partridge (1978), Morse (1980), Cody (1985), Wiens (1989a), Block and Brennan (1993), Jones (2001), Johnson (2007) and Boulinier et al . (2008).