Shared tools to analyze animal movement data with contextual environmental information
Sarah C Davidson, Ohio State University, Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior, sdavidson@ab.mpg.de (Presenter)
Andrea Kölzsch, Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior, akoelzsch@ab.mpg.de
Justine Missik, Ohio State University, missik.2@osu.edu
Nilanjan Chatterjee, University of Minnesota, nchatter@umn.edu
Ashley Lohr, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, ashley.lohr@naturalsciences.org
John Fieberg, University of Minnesota, jfieberg@umn.edu
Roland Kays, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, rwkays@ncsu.edu
Gil Bohrer, Ohio State University, bohrer.17@osu.edu
Wildlife managers and movement ecologists are increasingly experienced in the use of bio-logging technology to monitor animal movements and behavior, and quantitative methods to assess environmental drivers and changes over space in time. However, integrating remote sensing and other environmental and geospatial data sources for such analysis remains a challenge. Further, the programming skills, computing infrastructure and time required for state-of-the-art analysis constrains the potential impact of these data. Increasing access to sophisticated analysis software that supports data exploration and integration offers opportunities for applied wildlife management and conservation, and for communicating with communities and policy-makers.
The MoveApps platform and ECODATA software packages offer new tools to explore and analyze animal movement data. Interactive and customizable workflows, composed of sequences of "apps" (currently over 80 are available), support a growing number of analysis methods. MoveApps offers serverless computing and compatibility with the Movebank animal tracking database, allowing automated data processing without local software installation or computing infrastructure. Sharable workflows and secure data sharing support collaborative projects. Source code is written in R, Python and Matlab and hosted on GitHub, and anyone is welcome to contribute to future development. During our beta release phase, we are prioritizing developments based on needs identified through years of collaboration with wildlife management agencies. These include maps and animations of animal movements along with remote sensing environmental and other geospatial data layers; resource selection functions; and analysis of ungulate parturitions, wildlife interactions with transportation infrastructure, migration corridors, carnivore kill sites, and flight characteristics and nesting behavior. Across these and other analyses, we aim to support integration of local data sources and facilitate discovery and use of relevant sources of environmental information, such as remote sensing and weather reanalysis products, information-rich base maps, and up-to-date sources of infrastructure and natural resource features.
Associated Project(s):
Poster Location ID: 1-32
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Poster Session 1
Session Date: Tue (May 9) 5:00-7:00 PM
CCE Program: BDEC