TY - JOUR
T1 - Light-level geolocator analyses
T2 - A user's guide
AU - Lisovski, Simeon
AU - Bauer, Silke
AU - Briedis, Martins
AU - Davidson, Sarah C.
AU - Dhanjal-Adams, Kiran L.
AU - Hallworth, Michael T.
AU - Karagicheva, Julia
AU - Meier, Christoph M.
AU - Merkel, Benjamin
AU - Ouwehand, Janne
AU - Pedersen, Lykke
AU - Rakhimberdiev, Eldar
AU - Roberto-Charron, Amélie
AU - Seavy, Nathaniel E.
AU - Sumner, Michael D.
AU - Taylor, Caz M.
AU - Wotherspoon, Simon J.
AU - Bridge, Eli S.
PY - 2020/1/1
Y1 - 2020/1/1
N2 - Light-level geolocator tags use ambient light recordings to estimate the whereabouts of an individual over the time it carried the device. Over the past decade, these tags have emerged as an important tool and have been used extensively for tracking animal migrations, most commonly small birds. Analysing geolocator data can be daunting to new and experienced scientists alike. Over the past decades, several methods with fundamental differences in the analytical approach have been developed to cope with the various caveats and the often complicated data. Here, we explain the concepts behind the analyses of geolocator data and provide a practical guide for the common steps encompassing most analyses – annotation of twilights, calibration, estimating and refining locations, and extraction of movement patterns – describing good practices and common pitfalls for each step. We discuss criteria for deciding whether or not geolocators can answer proposed research questions, provide guidance in choosing an appropriate analysis method and introduce key features of the newest open-source analysis tools. We provide advice for how to interpret and report results, highlighting parameters that should be reported in publications and included in data archiving. Finally, we introduce a comprehensive supplementary online manual that applies the concepts to several datasets, demonstrates the use of open-source analysis tools with step-by-step instructions and code and details our recommendations for interpreting, reporting and archiving.
AB - Light-level geolocator tags use ambient light recordings to estimate the whereabouts of an individual over the time it carried the device. Over the past decade, these tags have emerged as an important tool and have been used extensively for tracking animal migrations, most commonly small birds. Analysing geolocator data can be daunting to new and experienced scientists alike. Over the past decades, several methods with fundamental differences in the analytical approach have been developed to cope with the various caveats and the often complicated data. Here, we explain the concepts behind the analyses of geolocator data and provide a practical guide for the common steps encompassing most analyses – annotation of twilights, calibration, estimating and refining locations, and extraction of movement patterns – describing good practices and common pitfalls for each step. We discuss criteria for deciding whether or not geolocators can answer proposed research questions, provide guidance in choosing an appropriate analysis method and introduce key features of the newest open-source analysis tools. We provide advice for how to interpret and report results, highlighting parameters that should be reported in publications and included in data archiving. Finally, we introduce a comprehensive supplementary online manual that applies the concepts to several datasets, demonstrates the use of open-source analysis tools with step-by-step instructions and code and details our recommendations for interpreting, reporting and archiving.
KW - animal tracking
KW - archival tags
KW - FLightR
KW - GeoLight
KW - Movebank
KW - probGLS
KW - SGAT
KW - solar geolocation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85068119355&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/1365-2656.13036
DO - 10.1111/1365-2656.13036
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 31190329
AN - SCOPUS:85068119355
SN - 0021-8790
JO - Journal of Animal Ecology
JF - Journal of Animal Ecology
ER -