Articles

Editorial: thematic series “Integrating movement ecology with biodiversity research”

Authors: Florian Jeltsch and Volker Grimm

Space use and habitat selection of an invasive mesopredator and sympatric, native apex predator

Where mesopredators co-exist with dominant apex predators, an understanding of the factors that influence their habitat and space use can provide insights that help guide wildlife conservation and pest managem...

Authors: Michael L. Wysong, Bronwyn A. Hradsky, Gwenllian D. Iacona, Leonie E. Valentine, Keith Morris and Euan G. Ritchie

Behavioral rhythms of an opportunistic predator living in anthropogenic landscapes

Human activities have profoundly altered the spatio-temporal availability of food resources. Yet, there is a clear lack of knowledge on how opportunistic species adapt to these new circumstances by scheduling ...

Authors: Yaiza Parra-Torres, Francisco Ramírez, Isabel Afán, Jacopo Aguzzi, Willem Bouten, Manuela G. Forero and Joan Navarro

The boon and bane of boldness: movement syndrome as saviour and sink for population genetic diversity

Many felid species are of high conservation concern, and with increasing human disturbance the situation is worsening. Small isolated populations are at risk of genetic impoverishment decreasing within-species...

Authors: Joseph Premier, Jörns Fickel, Marco Heurich and Stephanie Kramer-Schadt

Living la Vida T-LoCoH: site fidelity of Florida ranched and wild white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) during the epizootic hemorrhagic disease virus (EHDV) transmission period

Epizootic hemorrhagic disease virus (EHDV) is a pathogen vectored by Culicoides midges that causes significant economic loss in the cervid farming industry and affects wild deer as well. Despite this, its ecology...

Authors: Emily T. N. Dinh, Allison Cauvin, Jeremy P. Orange, Rebecca M. Shuman, Samantha M. Wisely and Jason K. Blackburn

Modelling movement and stage-specific habitat preferences of a polyphagous insect pest

The feeding preferences of Diabrotica speciosa (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) cause a parent-offspring conflict, as providing the best host for the offspring development is detrimental to adult survival and fecundit...

Authors: Adriano G. Garcia, Wesley A. C. Godoy, Fernando L. Cônsoli and Claudia P. Ferreira

Causes and consequences of individual variation in animal movement

Animal movement comes in a variety of ‘types’ including small foraging movements, larger one-way dispersive movements, seasonally-predictable round-trip migratory movements, and erratic nomadic movements. Alth...

Authors: Allison K. Shaw

Sex-differences in fine-scale home-range use in an upper-trophic level marine predator

The distribution of prey in the ocean is spatially and temporally patchy. How predators respond to this prey patchiness may have consequences on their foraging success, and thus physical condition. The recent ...

Authors: D. C. Lidgard, W. D. Bowen and S. J. Iverson

Habitat availability influences migration speed, refueling patterns and seasonal flyways of a fly-and-forage migrant

Despite our understanding of the principal factors that shape bird migration strategies, there is conflicting evidence regarding the role of habitat in shaping migration routes and schedules, including day and...

Authors: Thomas G. Hadjikyriakou, Emmanuel C. Nwankwo, Munir Z. Virani and Alexander N. G. Kirschel

Understanding decision making in a food-caching predator using hidden Markov models

Tackling behavioural questions often requires identifying points in space and time where animals make decisions and linking these to environmental variables. State-space modeling is useful for analysing moveme...

Authors: Mohammad S. Farhadinia, Théo Michelot, Paul J. Johnson, Luke T. B. Hunter and David W. Macdonald

Active acoustic telemetry tracking and tri-axial accelerometers reveal fine-scale movement strategies of a non-obligate ram ventilator

California horn sharks (Heterodontus francisci) are nocturnally active, non-obligate ram ventilating sharks in rocky reef habitats that play an important ecological role in regulating invertebrate communities. We...

Authors: Emily N. Meese and Christopher G. Lowe

Effects of age on foraging behavior in two closely related albatross species

Foraging performance is widely hypothesized to play a key role in shaping age-specific demographic rates in wild populations, yet the underlying behavioral changes are poorly understood. Seabirds are among the...

Authors: Caitlin K. Frankish, Andrea Manica and Richard A. Phillips

Stopover departure decisions in songbirds: do long-distance migrants depart earlier and more independently of weather conditions than medium-distance migrants?

Songbirds following distinct migration strategies (e.g. long- vs. short- to medium-distance migrants) often differ in their speed of migration during autumn and, thus, are assumed to face different time constr...

Authors: Florian Packmor, Thomas Klinner, Bradley K. Woodworth, Cas Eikenaar and Heiko Schmaljohann

The physiology of movement

Movement, from foraging to migration, is known to be under the influence of the environment. The translation of environmental cues to individual movement decision making is determined by an individual’s intern...

Authors: Steven Goossens, Nicky Wybouw, Thomas Van Leeuwen and Dries Bonte

Movement behaviour of two social urticating caterpillars in opposite hemispheres

Investigating movement ecology of organisms has economic, societal, and conservation benefits. Larval movement of insects for example, plays many significant ecological roles, and with the expansion of the hum...

Authors: Mizuki Uemura, Lynda E. Perkins, Myron P. Zalucki and Andrea Battisti

Towards the restoration of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor for large mammals in Panama: comparing multi-species occupancy to movement models

Habitat fragmentation is a primary driver of wildlife loss, and the establishment of biological corridors is a conservation strategy to mitigate this problem. Identifying areas with high potential functional c...

Authors: Ninon F. V. Meyer, Ricardo Moreno, Rafael Reyna-Hurtado, Johannes Signer and Niko Balkenhol

Dispersal and life-history traits in a spider with rapid range expansion

Dispersal and reproduction are key life-history traits that jointly determine species’ potential to expand their distribution, for instance in light of ongoing climate change. These life-history traits are kno...

Authors: Marina Wolz, Michael Klockmann, Torben Schmitz, Stano Pekár, Dries Bonte and Gabriele Uhl

Contrasted habitats and individual plasticity drive the fine scale movements of juvenile green turtles in coastal ecosystems

A strong behavioural plasticity is commonly evidenced in the movements of marine megafauna species, and it might be related to an adaptation to local conditions of the habitat. One way to investigate such beha...

Authors: Philippine Chambault, Mayeul Dalleau, Jean-Benoît Nicet, Pascal Mouquet, Katia Ballorain, Claire Jean, Stéphane Ciccione and Jérôme Bourjea

Time and energy costs of different foraging choices in an avian generalist species

Animals can obtain a higher foraging yield by optimizing energy expenditure or minimizing time costs. In this study, we assessed how individual variation in the relative use of marine and terrestrial foraging ...

Authors: Alejandro Sotillo, Jan M. Baert, Wendt Müller, Eric W. M. Stienen, Amadeu M. V. M. Soares and Luc Lens

Size-dependent tradeoffs in seasonal freshwater environments facilitate differential salmonid migration

Seasonal spatio-temporal variation in habitat quality and abiotic conditions leads to animals migrating between different environments around the world. Whereas mean population timing of migration is often fai...

Authors: Philip Dermond, Carlos J. Melián and Jakob Brodersen

Arboreal route navigation in a Neotropical mammal: energetic implications associated with tree monitoring and landscape attributes

Although navigating along a network of routes might constrain animal movement flexibility, it may be an energetically efficient strategy. Routinely using the same route allows for visually monitoring of food r...

Authors: Miguel de Guinea, Alejandro Estrada, K. Anne-Isola Nekaris and Sarie Van Belle

Dynamics of animal joint space use: a novel application of a time series approach

Animal use is a dynamic phenomenon, emerging from the movements of animals responding to a changing environment. Interactions between animals are reflected in patterns of joint space use, which are also dynami...

Authors: Justin T. French, Hsiao-Hsuan Wang, William E. Grant and John M. Tomeček

The influence of a single species on the space use of mixed-species flocks in Amazonian Peru

The drivers of space use patterns of multi-species groups have been poorly studied, although mixed-species avian flocks are common throughout the world. In a mixed-species flock, multiple species move together...

Authors: Sean M. Williams and Catherine A. Lindell

The role of active movement in fungal ecology and community assembly

Movement ecology aims to provide common terminology and an integrative framework of movement research across all groups of organisms. Yet such work has focused on unitary organisms so far, and thus the importa...

Authors: Miloš Bielčik, Carlos A. Aguilar-Trigueros, Milica Lakovic, Florian Jeltsch and Matthias C. Rillig

Scale-insensitive estimation of speed and distance traveled from animal tracking data

Speed and distance traveled provide quantifiable links between behavior and energetics, and are among the metrics most routinely estimated from animal tracking data. Researchers typically sum over the straight...

Authors: Michael J. Noonan, Christen H. Fleming, Thomas S. Akre, Jonathan Drescher-Lehman, Eliezer Gurarie, Autumn-Lynn Harrison, Roland Kays and Justin M. Calabrese

Mesoscale movement and recursion behaviors of Namibian black rhinos

Understanding rhino movement behavior, especially their recursive movements, holds significant promise for enhancing rhino conservation efforts, and protecting their habitats and the biodiversity they support....

Authors: Dana Paige Seidel, Wayne L. Linklater, Werner Kilian, Pierre du Preez and Wayne M. Getz

Sympatric Atlantic puffins and razorbills show contrasting responses to adverse marine conditions during winter foraging within the North Sea

Natural environments are dynamic systems with conditions varying across years. Higher trophic level consumers may respond to changes in the distribution and quality of available prey by moving to locate new re...

Authors: Katie St. John Glew, Sarah Wanless, Michael P. Harris, Francis Daunt, Kjell Einar Erikstad, Hallvard Strøm, John R. Speakman, Benjamin Kürten and Clive N. Trueman

To cross or not to cross – thrushes at the German North Sea coast adapt flight and routing to wind conditions in autumn

Although many aspects of passerine migration are genetically determined, routing appears to be flexibly adjusted to the conditions experienced on each individual journey. This holds especially true for routing...

Authors: Vera Brust, Bianca Michalik and Ommo Hüppop

Evidence of niche differentiation for two sympatric vulture species in the Southeastern United States

As obligate scavengers utilizing similar habitats, interspecific competition undoubtedly occurs between resident black (Coragyps atratus) and turkey (Cathartes aura) vultures. In the interest of exploring how sym...

Authors: Amanda E. Holland, Michael E. Byrne, Jeffrey Hepinstall-Cymerman, A. Lawrence Bryan, Travis L. DeVault, Olin E. Rhodes Jr and James C. Beasley

Tropical cyclones alter short-term activity patterns of a coastal seabird

Mobile organisms in marine environments are expected to modify their behavior in response to external stressors. Among environmental drivers of animal movement are long-term climatic indices influencing organi...

Authors: Bradley P. Wilkinson, Yvan G. Satgé, Juliet S. Lamb and Patrick G. R. Jodice

Exploration during early life: distribution, habitat and orientation preferences in juvenile king penguins

The early life of marine apex predators is poorly known, particularly for diving species. The orientation and foraging skills are presumably less developed in juveniles than in adults, especially during their ...

Authors: F. Orgeret, C. Péron, M. R. Enstipp, K. Delord, H. Weimerskirch and C. A. Bost

Integrating the influence of weather into mechanistic models of butterfly movement

Understanding the factors influencing movement is essential to forecasting species persistence in a changing environment. Movement is often studied using mechanistic models, extrapolating short-term observatio...

Authors: Luke C. Evans, Richard M. Sibly, Pernille Thorbek, Ian Sims, Tom H. Oliver and Richard J. Walters

Behavioural compass: animal behaviour recognition using magnetometers

Animal-borne data loggers today often house several sensors recording simultaneously at high frequency. This offers opportunities to gain fine-scale insights into behaviour from individual-sensor as well as in...

Authors: Pritish Chakravarty, Maiki Maalberg, Gabriele Cozzi, Arpat Ozgul and Kamiar Aminian

Movement seasonality in a desert-dwelling bat revealed by miniature GPS loggers

Bats are among the most successful desert mammals. Yet, our understanding of their spatio-temporal dynamics in habitat use associated with the seasonal oscillation of resources is still limited. In this study,...

Authors: Irene Conenna, Adrià López-Baucells, Ricardo Rocha, Simon Ripperger and Mar Cabeza

The start of migration correlates with arrival timing, and the total speed of migration increases with migration distance in migratory songbirds: a cross-continental analysis

Anthropogenic changes in the climate and environment have globally affected ecological processes such that the spatiotemporal occurrence of the main annual cycle events (i.e., breeding, wintering, moulting, an...

Authors: Heiko Schmaljohann

Flexible resource use strategies of a central-place forager experiencing dynamic risk and opportunity

Movement decisions made in space and time define how wildlife meet competing extrinsic and intrinsic demands to maximize fitness. Differential selection of resource patches provides one example of how to measu...

Authors: Kira L. Hefty and Kelley M. Stewart

Ecological correlates of blue whale movement behavior and its predictability in the California Current Ecosystem during the summer-fall feeding season

Species distribution models have shown that blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) occur seasonally in high densities in the most biologically productive regions of the California Current Ecosystem (CCE). Satellite ...

Authors: Daniel M. Palacios, Helen Bailey, Elizabeth A. Becker, Steven J. Bograd, Monica L. DeAngelis, Karin A. Forney, Elliott L. Hazen, Ladd M. Irvine and Bruce R. Mate

Black bears alter movements in response to anthropogenic features with time of day and season

With the growth and expansion of human development, large mammals will increasingly encounter humans, elevating the likelihood of human-wildlife conflicts. Understanding the behavior and movement of large mamm...

Authors: Katherine A. Zeller, David W. Wattles, Laura Conlee and Stephen DeStefano

Slow-moving soil organisms on a water highway: aquatic dispersal and survival potential of Oribatida and Collembola in running water

Oribatida and Collembola are an important part of the soil food web and increase soil fertility by contributing to the recycling of nutrients out of dead organic matter. Active locomotion enables only limited ...

Authors: Meike M. Schuppenhauer, Ricarda Lehmitz and Willi E. R. Xylander

Modelling animal movement as Brownian bridges with covariates

The ability to observe animal movement and possible correlates has increased strongly over the past decades. Methods to analyze trajectories have developed in parallel, but many tools fail to make an immediate...

Authors: Bart Kranstauber

Acoustic evaluation of behavioral states predicted from GPS tracking: a case study of a marine fishing bat

Multiple methods have been developed to infer behavioral states from animal movement data, but rarely has their accuracy been assessed from independent evidence, especially for location data sampled with high ...

Authors: Edward Hurme, Eliezer Gurarie, Stefan Greif, L. Gerardo Herrera M., José Juan Flores-Martínez, Gerald S. Wilkinson and Yossi Yovel

Using seasonal landscape models to predict space use and migratory patterns of an arctic ungulate

Caribou in the Western Arctic Herd undertake one of the longest, remaining intact migrations of terrestrial mammals in the world. They are also the most important subsistence resource for many northern rural r...

Authors: A. P. Baltensperger and K. Joly

Foraging for high caloric anthropogenic prey is energetically costly

Several generalist species benefit from food provided by human activities. Food from anthropogenic sources is often high in caloric value and can positively influence reproductive success or survival. However,...

Authors: Susanne van Donk, Judy Shamoun-Baranes, Jaap van der Meer and Kees C. J. Camphuysen

Modified home range kernel density estimators that take environmental interactions into account

Kernel density estimation (KDE) is a major tool in the movement ecologist toolbox that is used to delineate where geo-tracked animals spend their time. Because KDE bandwidth optimizers are sensitive to tempora...

Authors: Guillaume Péron

Circular statistics meets practical limitations: a simulation-based Rao’s spacing test for non-continuous data

For data collected on a circular rather than linear scale, a very common procedure is to test whether the underlying distribution appears to deviate from circular uniformity. Rao’s spacing test is often used t...

Authors: Lukas Landler, Graeme D. Ruxton and E. Pascal Malkemper

Potential path volume (PPV): a geometric estimator for space use in 3D

Many animals move in three dimensions and many animal tracking studies collect the data on their movement in three physical dimensions. However, there is a lack of approaches that consider the vertical dimensi...

Authors: Urška Demšar and Jed A. Long

The movement ecology of the Mauritian flying fox (Pteropus niger): a long-term study using solar-powered GSM/GPS tags

Flying foxes (Chiroptera: Pteropodidae) are large bats that often roost in the sun, hence solar-powered GPS/GSM devices can track their movements over extended periods. The endemic Mauritian flying fox (Pteropus ...

Authors: Ryszard Z. Oleksy, Charles L. Ayady, Vikash Tatayah, Carl Jones, Paul W. Howey, Jérémy S. P. Froidevaux, Paul A. Racey and Gareth Jones

Correction to: Winter home range and habitat selection differs among breeding populations of herring gulls in eastern North America

Following publication of the original article [1], the authors reported that one of the authors’ names was spelled incorrectly. In this Correction the incorrect and correct author name are shown. The original ...

Authors: Christine M. Anderson, H. Grant Gilchrist, Robert A. Ronconi, Katherine R. Shlepr, Daniel E. Clark, D. V. Chip Weseloh, Gregory J. Robertson and Mark L. Mallory

SiMRiv: an R package for mechanistic simulation of individual, spatially-explicit multistate movements in rivers, heterogeneous and homogeneous spaces incorporating landscape bias

Lack of suitable analytical software and computational power constrains the comprehension of animal movement. In particular, we are aware of no tools allowing simulating spatially-explicit multistate Markovian...

Authors: Lorenzo Quaglietta and Miguel Porto

Long-distance passive dispersal in microscopic aquatic animals

Given their dormancy capability (long-term resistant stages) and their ability to colonise and reproduce, microscopic aquatic animals have been suggested having cosmopolitan distribution. Their dormant stages ...

Authors: Diego Fontaneto