MORPH—An individual-based model to predict the effect of environmental change on foraging animal populations

Richard A. Stillman

Ecological Modelling, 2008, vol. 216, issue 3, 265-276

Abstract: This paper describes an individual-based model, MORPH, that has been designed to predict the effect of environmental change on foraging animal populations. The key assumptions of MORPH are that individuals within populations behave in order to maximise their perceived fitness, but that perceived fitness may not always be positively related to the actual chances of survival and reproduction. MORPH has been parameterised for coastal birds on several European sites and predicted the effect of environmental change, caused by factors such as habitat loss, disturbance from humans and sea-level rise, on the survival and body condition of these species. However, MORPH contains a basic framework to describe animal physiology and foraging behaviour, and the distribution and abundance of the resources required by these animals. Therefore, MORPH is not restricted to coastal birds, and is potentially applicable to a wider range of systems. To be applied to a forager system, MORPH requires parameters describing (i) the distribution of the food supply and how food quality and abundance changes through time; (ii) the rate at which foragers consume food given the abundance of food and competitors; (iii) the amount of food the forager must consume each day to survive; (iv) the distribution and seasonal changes in other factors which influence the foraging behaviour and survival of foragers. The purpose of this paper is to (i) describe MORPH, (ii) give examples of its application, (iii) describe the types of systems to which MORPH can be applied, and (iv) publish its source code and a user guide.

Keywords: Body condition; Fitness; Foraging behaviour; Mortality; Survival (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304380008002020
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:216:y:2008:i:3:p:265-276

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2008.04.014

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Modelling is currently edited by Brian D. Fath

More articles in Ecological Modelling from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().