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Modeling Relative Habitat Suitability And Movement Behavior Of Invasive Burmese Pythons In Southern Florida, Holly E. Mutascio

Open Access Theses

Invasive Burmese pythons are established in the Everglades and are altering the ecology of southern Florida. Their distribution in Florida is expanding northward into more urbanized and fragmented habitats. An understanding of the suitability of habitat throughout southern Florida for Burmese pythons and their interaction with Florida’s landscapes through movement behavior is vital for predicting the python’s ability to persist in habitats outside of the Everglades. In this thesis, we use ecological modeling to predict habitat suitability and to investigate personality-dependent dispersal.

First, we used presence-only ecological niche modeling with correction for sampling bias to identify the key landscape variables …