Homing Behavior - Science topic

I am trying to calculate KDE home ranges for 50 polar bears for a research project. The bears were collared with Argos GPS collars, and each bear has around 200 locations (one location/day).

I am hesitating between using the Least-squares cross validation method (LSCV) or plugin to estimate the h smoothing factor; given my dataset, which of the two would be the best method?

Any advice would be appreciated!

We are trying to estimate the Home Range of Dalmatian Pelican in Southeastern Europe and we want to locate any similar research may exist for any other pelican species of the Old World (5 species in total)

I am working on species foraging and roosting data over two different regions. I have worked out for each region what percentage of the data within their home range occurs in native vegetation. However, how do I statistically compare the use of native vegetation as their home ranges differ per region? My primary concern, however, is that the home range sizes are different which means I cannot compare percentages of native vegetation used between these areas. My main hypothesis is: is there a significant difference in native vegetation used between regions (HR1 and HR2)?

Example: HR1: 490km2 native vegetation within HR1: 212km2 foraging in native vegetation: 20% HR2: 41km2 native vegetation within HR2: 9.5km2 foraging in native vegetation: 18%

As usual, it is difficult for me to pin down the best statistical method to compare the use of native vegetation between regions: possibly lme? Any help is greatly appreciated!!

Hello,

I just recently started working with the different types of home range estimations and have a few questions about this and that. Maybe you could help me out with that?!

My study animals are Sand Lizards (Lacerta agilis), that I tracked with VHF transmitters along a railway track in eastern Germany. I tracked up to 20 animals at the same time, that’s why I have only 3-7 datapoints per animal per day. The transmitters lasted up to 20 days, but most of them were peeled of by the animals earlier. In average I have 33 datapoints per animal. With this information in mind, you can hopefully get an impression of the data quality I am working with. So here are my questions:

1) I read that it is important to report on autocorrelation of the datasets (and also on site fidelity of the animals). The dataset of most of my animals seems to be autocorrelated. This is probably due to the site fidelity of the animals. My question is: How do I interpret this information about autocorrelation and how does that affect my home range estimation?

2) I would like to check if the number of locations was somehow sufficient to calculate proper home range estimates. Therefor I would like to use “area-observation plots”. I am just wondering what to have on the y-axis: if I have this plot for an MCP analysis (for example), do I take the total area of an animals MCP (in m2) or do I use percentages (where my final MCP is 100%)? In the second case, an asymptote would probably have more that 100 % - is that correct? Additionally: Is there a way how to calculate the number of locations randomly from my dataset (for every single animal) or is that usually done just one by one in the same order as my sampling occurred?

3) During the sampling I took notes when I sighted the animal I was tracking. Is there a way to include this information in any home range estimation? Do you think that is a useful information at all?

I would be really glad if you have at least one or another comment on my questions or could recommend some literature on these topics. Thank you very much!!

Alina

Hello, I have mapped the locations of several individuals of a certain species of bird. I have the GPS coordinates, the date and the time data every half hour for several consecutive days and I am trying to apply the Package 'mkde' to get the kernel density maps based on the movement (home range). Is there someone with experience in using this package who can help me?

Thank you very much!

Hi,

I'm trying to get the distance between the extreme limits of individuals' home-range estimate (I used AKDE estimation).

I think it is very simple to do it, but since I'm limited in using R program, I can't find a solution for that.

Does anyone have an idea of how to get this distance in R program?

Or have a script to do that? (It's ok if the script is for another home range estimation, I believe I can adapt it to AKDE estimation).

Thank you!

Claire

Like in some raptors.

I am conducting a study using wildlife traits, however, home range data is limited.

Pd. I have already used data from Tamburello et al. 2015, but I still have lots of species without home range data.

Hi!

I'm trying to do an accumulation curve (i.e. number of locations and home-range size) with my data to see if, with the number of radio locations I have, the home-range sizes reach the asymptote.

For this, I have to calculate the home range for every location added. Does someone knows how to do this in R program? Or already has a script for it?

Thank you for any help!

I am gathering bibliography around home range measurement with the traditional method, alias observation.

Thanks!

This year we plan to sample coleopterans withing home ranges of breeding Lesser Grey Shrikes. The species feed on ground-dwelling beetles. We would like to use non-lethal methods to sample them. I would deeply appreciate advice on suitable techniques or any articles on this subject. Thank you very much! Katarina

I have read some papers regarding distance sampling with camera traps, but there doesn't appear to be a clear reason why particular distances between camera traps are used. In mark-recpature it is species specific, but I don't think that appears to be important in the distance sampling method. Can I just use a sensible distance that allows me to sample a good sized area? I am looking at Leopard in South Africa for reference, considering a grid with 5 km distances between cameras, assuming their home range is not a necessary factor to consider when using this method.

Hello All,

We are conducting a home range study on aquatic turtle species and need to constrain the MCP or Home Range to a river. Any suggestions on how to do this using ArcGIS or an ArcGIS extension?

Many thanks for any advice you can provide.

I ave tried with the adehabitaHR package but my boundary does not satisfy the angle criteria between lines and I can't fiddle with that.

Any other solution??

I'm using a software called BIOTAS to analyse riverine fish movement. I wonder if it relevant to study the fish home range using the software. because whenever I plot the minimum convex polygon, the home range would include the non-river habitat. so, is that legit? help!

Usually I record the GPS coordinates of the identified spotted deer individual within a 50 m radius, will it be erroneous to utilise those points and compute a year-long Kernel Density Estimates for the animal

I would like to measure home-range overlap of radiotagged individuals monitored during the same time.

Is it possible with some R packages?

I am currently investigating how to best discriminate between animal movement tracks based on space-use patterns and characteristics of the moves themselves. Ideally I would like to use several complementary (i.e. non-correlated) statistics to be able to come up with statements like: "these two tracks resembled each other, as they covered areas of similar size, but one of the tracks was characterised by a larger number of highly directed and highly area-restricted moves than the other". The first statement could be measured using home range statistics, but I have not found a good way to measure distribution of moves. And perhaps there are other independent characteristics of animal moves that I haven't thought about. Suggestions are warmly welcomed!

Dear All,

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