Animal spatial ecology
New telemetry technology has led to an exponential increase in the amount of animal location data gathered in New Zealand and overseas.
Animal location data provide essential information on how animals behave and how they interact with each other, with other species, and with their environment. This knowledge can improve our understanding of key ecological and management questions relating to predator-prey dynamics, population dynamics, pest-native species interactions, and pests as disease vectors.
What can the Animal Movements Group do?
Specialised expertise is often required to maximise the benefits derived from animal location data. The Animal Movements Group brings together wildlife biologists and quantitative ecologists, and aims to assist collaborators with:
The design of movement ecology studies
- Clearly articulated a priori biological questions determine the type of animal location data required, as well as additional data requirements. Planning on how the data will be analysed should also occur at the start of a study.
Analysis of animal location data
- Detailed animal location datasets are already being collected as part of existing monitoring programmes. We aim to provide expertise to conduct sophisticated analyses of animal movements, dispersal, habitat selection and interactions with conspecifics and with other species. The aim is to maximise the knowledge that can be gained from these detailed datasets.