Collective movement in ecology: from emerging technologies to conservation and management

Abstract

Recent advances in technology and quantitative methods have led to the emergence of a new field of study that stands to link insights of researchers from two closely related, but often disconnected disciplines: movement ecology and collective animal behaviour. To date, the field of movement ecology has focused on elucidating the internal and external drivers of animal movement and the influence of movement on broader ecological processes. Typically, tracking and/or remote sensing technology is employed to study individual animals in natural conditions. By contrast, the field of collective behaviour has quantified the significant role social interactions play in the decision-making of animals within groups and, to date, has predominantly relied on controlled laboratory-based studies and theoretical models owing to the constraints of studying interacting animals in the field. This themed issue is intended to formalize the burgeoning field of collective movement ecology which integrates research from both movement ecology and collective behaviour. In this introductory paper, we set the stage for the issue by briefly examining the approaches and current status of research in these areas. Next, we outline the structure of the theme issue and describe the obstacles collective movement researchers face, from data acquisition in the field to analysis and problems of scale, and highlight the key contributions of the assembled papers. We finish by presenting research that links individual and broad-scale ecological and evolutionary processes to collective movement, and finally relate these concepts to emerging challenges for the management and conservation of animals on the move in a world that is increasingly impacted by human activity.This article is part of the theme issue 'Collective movement ecology'.

Interdisciplinary approaches for uncovering the impacts of architecture on collective behaviour

“…A recent issue of this journal presented many advances to the study of collective movement [76]. However, the study of collective movement often overlooks the impact of physical constraints.…”

“…Novel technological developments to track movement patterns continue to emerge, and working with engineers to implement and use new technologies can advance our understanding of how architecture influences collective behaviour. Furthermore, borrowing methods from movement ecology [76] and adapting them to smaller spatial scales with physical constraints can provide the tools necessary for quantifying movements.…”

Navigating through therpackages for movement

“…A type of analysis that was poorly covered was collective motion: mainly wildlifeDI and, to a lesser degree, TrajDataMining and movementAnalysis allow computing descriptive metrics on encounters between individuals, periods of proximity or other metrics of interaction. The lack of R functions to analyze collective movement beyond descriptive statistics is most likely a reflection of the early stages of this field regarding the use of tracking data; collective behavior has mostly relied on controlled laboratory-based studies and theoretical models (Westley et al, 2018). Overall, the review highlighted the abundance of analytical tools available, but also identified a need to improve visibility and accessibility (i.e.…”

Lateral position preference in grazing feral horses

“…Further quantitative studies using drones to investigate relationships between spatial positioning and social variables, including sex and social rank, will provide new insight into the effect of social relationships on spatial distributions, from local aspect to global views; that is, from nearest neighbours to the whole group. In conclusion, technological developments have allowed us to investigate the spatial relationships of terrestrial animals in detail, and future advances may reveal the underlying mechanisms of these relationships, which could lead to a better understanding of the evolutionary foundations of human behaviour (Torney et al, ; Westley, Berdahl, Torney, & Biro, ).…”