A curated collection of my blog posts focused on animal tracking analysis.
There are numerous tools available for analyzing tracking data. In this post, I share a curated collection of my blog entries that focus specifically on movement analysis, covering from data loading and cleaning to visualizations. Additionally, I’ve included a brief list of papers that can serve as guidance when embarking on tracking studies.
Load data
- From movebank
- From csv
Data preparation
- Usage of time formats
- Converting times
- Time overlap between individuals
- Locate the animals central location
- Include Julian days
- Identify Day or night
- Calculate speed
- Behaviour classification
Clean raw data
- Select columns
- Remove undesired locations
- Identify gaps
- Complete or incomplete
- Export clean data frame
Calculate trip parameters
- Number of trips: Identify events
- Maximum distance: Distance from point
- Total length path: Distance between points
Home range tools and considerations
- Kernel UD considerations
- Interpolate a path
- Calculate UD and export shapefiles
- Calculate shared areas
Habitat use
- In land or not
Visualizations
- Plot basics
- Create a base map in R
- Inside plot legend
- Animations
Below, you’ll find a list of recommended sources to explore.
I keep the list concise, though there are certainly many other resources available.
2006
- The package “adehabitat” for the R software: A tool for the analysis of space and habitat use by animals
by C Calenge
2016
- Shared R script for calculating trip parameters by BG Lascelles
2019
- A compilation of R packages made by R Joo
2021
- Detailed description of the movebank system by R Kays
- A guide to pre-processing animal tracking data by P Gupte
- The package track2KBA by M Beal
- My package sula
2023
- My teaching materials
2024
- ExMove: An open-source toolkit for processing and exploring animal-tracking data by L Langley
- move2: R package for processing movement data by K Kranstauber
Note that technology is advancing rapidly, and some of the scripts rely on functions that might already being deprecated.
Even though there are a lot of resources out there, I prefer to write my own scripts, particularly when addressing specific questions. If you need help or a custom script, feel free to reach out to me.