Automated data analysis to rapidly derive and communicate ecological insights from satellite-tag data: A case study of reintroduced red kites

Rene Van Der Wal; Cheng Zeng; Danny Heptinstall; Kapila Ponnamperuma; Chris Mellish; Stuart Benn; Advaith Siddharthan

doi:10.1007/s13280-015-0711-3

Automated data analysis to rapidly derive and communicate ecological insights from satellite-tag data: A case study of reintroduced red kites

Rene Van Der Wal, Cheng Zeng, Danny Heptinstall, Kapila Ponnamperuma, Chris Mellish, Stuart Benn, Advaith Siddharthan

RSPB

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

17 Citations (Scopus)

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Abstract

Analysis of satellite-telemetry data mostly occurs long after it has been collected, due to the time and effort needed to collate and interpret such material. Delayed reporting reduces the usefulness of such data for nature conservation where timely information about animal movements is required. To counter this problem, we present a novel approach which combines automated analysis of satellite-telemetry data with rapid communication of insights derived from such data. A relatively simple algorithm (based on radial and angular velocity calculated from fixes) allowed instantaneous detection of excursions away from settlement areas and automated calculation of home ranges on the remaining data. Automating the detection of both excursions and home-range calculations enabled us to disseminate ecological insights from satellite-tag data instantaneously through a dedicated web portal. The automated analysis, interpretation, and communication of satellite-tag and other ecological data offer clear benefits to nature conservation research and practice.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	S612-S623
Number of pages	12
Journal	Ambio
Volume	44
Issue number	Suppl. 4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-015-0711-3
Publication status	Published - 27 Oct 2015

Bibliographical note

Acknowledgements
We thank Andrew Spink (Noldus Information Technology) and the Blogging Birds team members Peter Kindness and Abdul Adeniyi for their valuable contributions to this paper. John Fryxell, Chris Thaxter and Arjun Amar provided valuable comments on an earlier version. The study was part of the Digital Conservation project of dot.rural, the University of Aberdeen’s Digital Economy Research Hub, funded by RCUK (grant reference EP/G066051/1).

Keywords

automated home-range calculation
red kite reintroduction
satellite-tag data
science communication

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10.1007/s13280-015-0711-3Licence: CC BY

Automated data analysis to rapidly derive and communicate ecological insights from satellite-tag data
© The Author(s) 2015 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Final published version, 2.31 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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abstract = "Analysis of satellite-telemetry data mostly occurs long after it has been collected, due to the time and effort needed to collate and interpret such material. Delayed reporting reduces the usefulness of such data for nature conservation where timely information about animal movements is required. To counter this problem, we present a novel approach which combines automated analysis of satellite-telemetry data with rapid communication of insights derived from such data. A relatively simple algorithm (based on radial and angular velocity calculated from fixes) allowed instantaneous detection of excursions away from settlement areas and automated calculation of home ranges on the remaining data. Automating the detection of both excursions and home-range calculations enabled us to disseminate ecological insights from satellite-tag data instantaneously through a dedicated web portal. The automated analysis, interpretation, and communication of satellite-tag and other ecological data offer clear benefits to nature conservation research and practice.",

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ER -

Automated data analysis to rapidly derive and communicate ecological insights from satellite-tag data: A case study of reintroduced red kites

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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