I studied demographic processes that operate on individual animals as a means to understand the relationship of landscape structure to population size and survival. I applied the idea of risk-sensitivity to habitat selection by examining the demographic effects on an animal population in which individuals select from two habitats that have similar mean values for reproductive output but differ in the variance of reproductive output. I conducted simulations using a source-sink population model to show that population size increased with increased variation in habitat quality. I then looked at how landscape heterogeneity was related to ring-necked pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) demography. Although wildlife ecologists suggest that the period of settling movements during spring is a time of high mortality, there are few data to quantify the impact on demographics. Most often, the proximate cause of mortality is predation. However, ecologists presume that landscape pattern is strongly correlated with survival. I used radio-tracking data from April-May 1992 and 1993 on hen pheasants in an agricultural landscape in northern Iowa to determine factors related to survival. I measured covariates to quantify habitat selection, individual movement rates, and landscape patterns, and evaluated these using Cox's proportional hazards model. I used a geographical information system to map hen use of habitat, calculated movement rates, and quantified landscape patterns within areas selected by hens. Edge density (m/ha) was predictive of mortality whereas movement rates were not. I linked this landscape factor to pheasant population dynamics by developing a spatially-explicit, individually-based model. I examined both parametric and nonparametric means of specifying the underlying instantaneous hazard, and simulated time- and location-specific survival as a function of landscape features, including edge density. Modeling the distribution of settling movements including habitat selection, and the predicted effects on mortality, enabled me to combine activities and fates of individual animals and to simulate population-wide demographic responses to landscape attributes. I conducted a simulation experiment that tested the effect of changes in the configuration (edge density) and composition (% grassland) of the landscapes used as input for the simulations. Simulated population survival was lowest in landscapes with low proportions of grassland and high measures of edge density.