Distinguishing technology from biology: a critical review of the use of GPS telemetry data in ecology

By Mark Hebblewhite, Daniel T. Haydon. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2010

685 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In the past decade, ecologists have witnessed vast improvements in our ability to collect animal movement data through animal-borne technology, such as through GPS or ARGOS systems. However, more data does not necessarily yield greater knowledge in understanding animal ecology and conservation. In this paper, we provide a review of the major benefits, problems and potential misuses of GPS/Argos technology to animal ecology and conservation. Benefits are obvious, and include the ability to collect fine-scale spatio-temporal location data on many previously impossible to study animals, such as ocean-going fish, migratory songbirds and long-distance migratory mammals. These benefits come with significant problems, however, imposed by frequent collar failures and high cost, which often results in weaker study design, reduced sample sizes and poorer statistical inference. In addition, we see the divorcing of biologists from a field-based understanding of animal ecology to be a growing problem. Despite these difficulties, GPS devices have provided significant benefits, particularly in the conservation and ecology of wide-ranging species. We conclude by offering suggestions for ecologists on which kinds of ecological questions would currently benefit the most from GPS/Argos technology, and where the technology has been potentially misused. Significant conceptual challenges remain, however, including the links between movement and behaviour, and movement and population dynamics.

Subfields: Ecology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/db86e997b68fcb7ee882c5ff9ad8f9c162256405

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology

Citations in the corpus

What Is the Proper Methodto Delineate Home Range of anAnimal Using Today’s AdvancedGPS Telemetry Systems: The Initial Step (2011, neutral): “Potential disadvantages of GPS telemetry are substantial costs of GPS radiocollars, which often leads to smaller sample sizes and potentially inappropriate population-level inferences (Hebblewhite & Haydon 2010).”
Drones count wildlife more accurately and precisely than humans (2017, methodology): “…Carbone 2008) and radio telemetry (Hussey et al. 2015; Kays et al. 2015), have increasingly been used to address this challenge (Moll et al. 2007; Hebblewhite & Haydon 2010; Pimm et al. 2015), especially when wildlife populations are rapidly fluctuating, highly mobile or located in remote habitats.”
Grizzly bear and human interaction in Yellowstone National Park: An evaluation of bear management areas (2013, background): “Some research has been limited by very high frequency radio collars, which provide an approximate location and restrict times or dates of data collection (Hebblewhite and Haydon 2010, Urbano et al. 2010).”
Animal ecology meets GPS-based radiotelemetry: a perfect storm of opportunities and challenges (2010, methodology): “The technology is limited by battery life and by archival memory (Hebblewhite & Haydon 2010; Tomkiewicz et al. 2010).”
Home range, activity and sociality of a top predator, the dingo: a test of the Resource Dispersion Hypothesis (2013, background): “Major advancements in the study of animal movements through the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) technology (Hebblewhite and Haydon 2010) further enable us to test the effect of resource dispersion and abundance on dingo movements.”
Linking Movement Ecology with Wildlife Management and Conservation (2016, background): “This growth has provided a number of benefits for conservation and management, such as improving our understanding of habitats important for wildlife and the area traversed by wide-ranging species (Hebblewhite and Haydon, 2010).”
Fencing solves human‐wildlife conflict locally but shifts problems elsewhere: A case study using functional connectivity modelling of the African elephant (2018, background): “One of the many advantages of using continuous telemetry datasets is that it accounts for variable connectivity in different areas or across time (Hebblewhite & Haydon, 2010; Pape & Löffler, 2015).”
Integrating research using animal‐borne telemetry with the needs of conservation management (2017, background): “Raising awareness for the public and policymakers Visual aids, such as maps, can be vital knowledge brokering tools for issues of conservation concern (Hebblewhite & Haydon 2010).”