Understanding and predicting animal movements and distributions in the Anthropocene

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Bibliographic Details
Title: Understanding and predicting animal movements and distributions in the Anthropocene
Authors: Gomez, Sara, English, Holly M, Bejarano Alegre, Vanesa, Blackwell, Paul G, Bracken, Anna M, Bray, Eloise, Evans, Luke C, Gan, Jelaine L, Grecian, W James, Gutmann Roberts, Catherine, Harju, Seth M, Hejcmanová, Pavla, Lelotte, Lucie, Marshall, Benjamin Michael, Matthiopoulos, Jason, Mnenge, AichiMkunde Josephat, Niebuhr, Bernardo Brandao, Ortega, Zaida, Pollock, Christopher J, Potts, Jonathan R, Russell, Charlie J G, Rutz, Christian, Singh, Navinder J, Whyte, Katherine F, Börger, Luca
Contributors: Zoologia, Facultad de Ciencias Biologicas y Ambientales, FAPESP - Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo, NERC - Natural Environment Research Council, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, NGS - National Geographic Society
Source: J Anim Ecol
BULERIA. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de León
Universidad de León
Publisher Information: Wiley, 2025.
Publication Year: 2025
Subject Terms: 2401.23 Vertebrados, Sciences de l'environnement & écologie, Biología, Biologging, conservation, Conservation, Review, human‐modified landscapes, 2401.02 Comportamiento Animal, Life sciences, Ecología. Medio ambiente, Human-modified landscapes, Modelling, 3105.12 Ordenación y Conservación de la Fauna Silvestre, modelling, Movement ecology, biologging, 2401.06 Ecología Animal, human-modified landscapes, Environmental sciences & ecology, Sciences du vivant, movement ecology, Animal Science and Zoology, Zoología, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Description: Predicting animal movements and spatial distributions is crucial for our comprehension of ecological processes and provides key evidence for conserving and managing populations, species and ecosystems. Notwithstanding considerable progress in movement ecology in recent decades, developing robust predictions for rapidly changing environments remains challenging. To accurately predict the effects of anthropogenic change, it is important to first identify the defining features of human‐modified environments and their consequences on the drivers of animal movement. We review and discuss these features within the movement ecology framework, describing relationships between external environment, internal state, navigation and motion capacity. Developing robust predictions under novel situations requires models moving beyond purely correlative approaches to a dynamical systems perspective. This requires increased mechanistic modelling, using functional parameters derived from first principles of animal movement and decision‐making. Theory and empirical observations should be better integrated by using experimental approaches. Models should be fitted to new and historic data gathered across a wide range of contrasting environmental conditions. We need therefore a targeted and supervised approach to data collection, increasing the range of studied taxa and carefully considering issues of scale and bias, and mechanistic modelling. Thus, we caution against the indiscriminate non‐supervised use of citizen science data, AI and machine learning models. We highlight the challenges and opportunities of incorporating movement predictions into management actions and policy. Rewilding and translocation schemes offer exciting opportunities to collect data from novel environments, enabling tests of model predictions across varied contexts and scales. Adaptive management frameworks in particular, based on a stepwise iterative process, including predictions and refinements, provide exciting opportunities of mutual benefit to movement ecology and conservation. In conclusion, movement ecology is on the verge of transforming from a descriptive to a predictive science. This is a timely progression, given that robust predictions under rapidly changing environmental conditions are now more urgently needed than ever for evidence‐based management and policy decisions. Our key aim now is not to describe the existing data as well as possible, but rather to understand the underlying mechanisms and develop models with reliable predictive ability in novel situations.
Document Type: Article
Other literature type
Language: English
ISSN: 1365-2656
0021-8790
DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.70040
DOI: 10.22541/au.173748205.59990435/v1
DOI: 10.22541/au.173748205.59990435/v2
Access URL: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40183529
https://hdl.handle.net/10612/25021
https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2656.70040
https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/539227/
https://hdl.handle.net/2268/331014
https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.70040
https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa69288/Download/69288__34409__3bb8e548148d4f9f8069885131626067.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/10612/25021
Rights: CC BY
CC BY NC ND
Accession Number: edsair.doi.dedup.....ab88d1c476a23aafff6add7a8f4a8b52
Database: OpenAIRE
Description
Abstract:Predicting animal movements and spatial distributions is crucial for our comprehension of ecological processes and provides key evidence for conserving and managing populations, species and ecosystems. Notwithstanding considerable progress in movement ecology in recent decades, developing robust predictions for rapidly changing environments remains challenging. To accurately predict the effects of anthropogenic change, it is important to first identify the defining features of human‐modified environments and their consequences on the drivers of animal movement. We review and discuss these features within the movement ecology framework, describing relationships between external environment, internal state, navigation and motion capacity. Developing robust predictions under novel situations requires models moving beyond purely correlative approaches to a dynamical systems perspective. This requires increased mechanistic modelling, using functional parameters derived from first principles of animal movement and decision‐making. Theory and empirical observations should be better integrated by using experimental approaches. Models should be fitted to new and historic data gathered across a wide range of contrasting environmental conditions. We need therefore a targeted and supervised approach to data collection, increasing the range of studied taxa and carefully considering issues of scale and bias, and mechanistic modelling. Thus, we caution against the indiscriminate non‐supervised use of citizen science data, AI and machine learning models. We highlight the challenges and opportunities of incorporating movement predictions into management actions and policy. Rewilding and translocation schemes offer exciting opportunities to collect data from novel environments, enabling tests of model predictions across varied contexts and scales. Adaptive management frameworks in particular, based on a stepwise iterative process, including predictions and refinements, provide exciting opportunities of mutual benefit to movement ecology and conservation. In conclusion, movement ecology is on the verge of transforming from a descriptive to a predictive science. This is a timely progression, given that robust predictions under rapidly changing environmental conditions are now more urgently needed than ever for evidence‐based management and policy decisions. Our key aim now is not to describe the existing data as well as possible, but rather to understand the underlying mechanisms and develop models with reliable predictive ability in novel situations.
ISSN:13652656
00218790
DOI:10.1111/1365-2656.70040