The Comparison of Usage and Availability Measurements for Evaluating Resource Preference

1980/02/01 by Douglas H. Johnson · 4,425 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Environmental Science · Mathematics · #Arbitrariness #Artificial intelligence #Biology #Component (thermodynamics) #Computer science #Ecology #Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies #Economics #Environmental resource management #Environmental science #Food preference #Genetic and phenotypic traits in livestock #Hierarchy #Mathematics #Preference #Rank (graph theory) #Resource (disambiguation) #Selection (genetic algorithm) #Statistics #Wildlife Ecology and Conservation

paper · doi:10.2307/1937156

published in Ecology 61(1), 65-71 (Wiley)

openalex publication_date 1980/02/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Modern ecological research often involves the comparison of the usage of habitat types or food items to the availability of those resources to the animal. Widely used methods of determining preference from measurements of usage and availability depend critically on the array of components that the researcher, often with a degree of arbitrariness, deems available to the animal. This paper proposes a new method, based on ranks of components by usage and by availability. A virtue of the rank procedure is that it provides comparable results whether a questionable component is included or excluded from consideration. Statistical tests of significance are given for the method. The paper also offers a hierarchical ordering of selection processes. This hierarchy resolves certain inconsistencies among studies of selection and is compatible with the analytic technique offered in this paper.

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