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Aim The critically endangered Cross River gorilla is a patchily distributed taxon for which habitat selection has been modelled only at coarse spatial scales, using remotely sensed landscape data and large-scale species distribution maps. These coarse-scale models fail to explain why Cross River gorillas ( CRG) display a highly fragmented distribution within what appears to be a large, continuous area of suitable habitat. This study aimed to refine our understanding of CRG habitat use to inform conservation planning both for the subspecies and for other fragmented species of conservation concern. Location Cross River gorillas occur only in a discontinuous distribution in the southern portion of the Cameroon- Nigeria border region, an area that represents one of Africa's biodiversity hotspots. This study was carried out in the Northern Mone- Mt. Oko region, part of the Mone/ Mbulu forest system located in the Manyu division of the South-west Province of Cameroon. Methods We used resource selection functions to understand habitat use by CRG at multiple scales. Specifically, we employed generalized additive models at the scale of the annual subpopulation range and conditional logistic regression at the scale of individual movements. Results Cross River gorillas habitat selection is highly scale dependent. Localized measures of habitat quality strongly influenced selection at the subpopulation or landscape scale, while human activity and food availability were the best predictors of selection at finer scales. Main conclusions Understanding why CRG do not occur in seemingly suitable habitat is crucial for designating critical habitat both within and between CRG subpopulations. Our results indicate that conservation planning to maintain critical habitat and connectivity among CRG populations will require an integrative, multi-scale planning approach incorporating large-scale landscape characteristics, human use patterns and CRG food availability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing the vulnerability of areas to habitat loss remains a challenge for conservation planners. Different areas are often assumed equally vulnerable to habitat loss or, worse, conservation attention focuses on remote, unproductive areas contributing little to minimizing biodiversity loss. Understanding vulnerability is crucial to planning but gathering the required information can be time consuming and expensive; and any data on vulnerability will be uncertain. We investigated the circumstances in which including vulnerability data produces better conservation decisions. We found that it is best to use existing information on vulnerability only when uncertainty is less than 20%-30%. With higher uncertainty and large spatial variance in vulnerability, it is best to improve vulnerability data before making conservation decisions. Otherwise, it is best to ignore vulnerability and consider only biodiversity value. Other important factors are whether reservation displaces or inhibits habitat loss and the correlation between biodiversity value and vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]