Cargando…

Enhancing the Use of Argos Satellite Data for Home Range and Long Distance Migration Studies of Marine Animals

Accurately quantifying animals’ spatial utilisation is critical for conservation, but has long remained an elusive goal due to technological impediments. The Argos telemetry system has been extensively used to remotely track marine animals, however location estimates are characterised by substantial...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Hoenner, Xavier, Whiting, Scott D., Hindell, Mark A., McMahon, Clive R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3395646/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22808241
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0040713
_version_ 1782238008992333824
author Hoenner, Xavier
Whiting, Scott D.
Hindell, Mark A.
McMahon, Clive R.
author_facet Hoenner, Xavier
Whiting, Scott D.
Hindell, Mark A.
McMahon, Clive R.
author_sort Hoenner, Xavier
collection PubMed
description Accurately quantifying animals’ spatial utilisation is critical for conservation, but has long remained an elusive goal due to technological impediments. The Argos telemetry system has been extensively used to remotely track marine animals, however location estimates are characterised by substantial spatial error. State-space models (SSM) constitute a robust statistical approach to refine Argos tracking data by accounting for observation errors and stochasticity in animal movement. Despite their wide use in ecology, few studies have thoroughly quantified the error associated with SSM predicted locations and no research has assessed their validity for describing animal movement behaviour. We compared home ranges and migratory pathways of seven hawksbill sea turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) estimated from (a) highly accurate Fastloc GPS data and (b) locations computed using common Argos data analytical approaches. Argos 68(th) percentile error was <1 km for LC 1, 2, and 3 while markedly less accurate (>4 km) for LC ≤0. Argos error structure was highly longitudinally skewed and was, for all LC, adequately modelled by a Student’s t distribution. Both habitat use and migration routes were best recreated using SSM locations post-processed by re-adding good Argos positions (LC 1, 2 and 3) and filtering terrestrial points (mean distance to migratory tracks ± SD = 2.2±2.4 km; mean home range overlap and error ratio  = 92.2% and 285.6 respectively). This parsimonious and objective statistical procedure however still markedly overestimated true home range sizes, especially for animals exhibiting restricted movements. Post-processing SSM locations nonetheless constitutes the best analytical technique for remotely sensed Argos tracking data and we therefore recommend using this approach to rework historical Argos datasets for better estimation of animal spatial utilisation for research and evidence-based conservation purposes.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-3395646
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2012
publisher Public Library of Science
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-33956462012-07-17 Enhancing the Use of Argos Satellite Data for Home Range and Long Distance Migration Studies of Marine Animals Hoenner, Xavier Whiting, Scott D. Hindell, Mark A. McMahon, Clive R. PLoS One Research Article Accurately quantifying animals’ spatial utilisation is critical for conservation, but has long remained an elusive goal due to technological impediments. The Argos telemetry system has been extensively used to remotely track marine animals, however location estimates are characterised by substantial spatial error. State-space models (SSM) constitute a robust statistical approach to refine Argos tracking data by accounting for observation errors and stochasticity in animal movement. Despite their wide use in ecology, few studies have thoroughly quantified the error associated with SSM predicted locations and no research has assessed their validity for describing animal movement behaviour. We compared home ranges and migratory pathways of seven hawksbill sea turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) estimated from (a) highly accurate Fastloc GPS data and (b) locations computed using common Argos data analytical approaches. Argos 68(th) percentile error was <1 km for LC 1, 2, and 3 while markedly less accurate (>4 km) for LC ≤0. Argos error structure was highly longitudinally skewed and was, for all LC, adequately modelled by a Student’s t distribution. Both habitat use and migration routes were best recreated using SSM locations post-processed by re-adding good Argos positions (LC 1, 2 and 3) and filtering terrestrial points (mean distance to migratory tracks ± SD = 2.2±2.4 km; mean home range overlap and error ratio  = 92.2% and 285.6 respectively). This parsimonious and objective statistical procedure however still markedly overestimated true home range sizes, especially for animals exhibiting restricted movements. Post-processing SSM locations nonetheless constitutes the best analytical technique for remotely sensed Argos tracking data and we therefore recommend using this approach to rework historical Argos datasets for better estimation of animal spatial utilisation for research and evidence-based conservation purposes. Public Library of Science 2012-07-12 /pmc/articles/PMC3395646/ /pubmed/22808241 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0040713 Text en Hoenner et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Hoenner, Xavier
Whiting, Scott D.
Hindell, Mark A.
McMahon, Clive R.
Enhancing the Use of Argos Satellite Data for Home Range and Long Distance Migration Studies of Marine Animals
title Enhancing the Use of Argos Satellite Data for Home Range and Long Distance Migration Studies of Marine Animals
title_full Enhancing the Use of Argos Satellite Data for Home Range and Long Distance Migration Studies of Marine Animals
title_fullStr Enhancing the Use of Argos Satellite Data for Home Range and Long Distance Migration Studies of Marine Animals
title_full_unstemmed Enhancing the Use of Argos Satellite Data for Home Range and Long Distance Migration Studies of Marine Animals
title_short Enhancing the Use of Argos Satellite Data for Home Range and Long Distance Migration Studies of Marine Animals
title_sort enhancing the use of argos satellite data for home range and long distance migration studies of marine animals
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3395646/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22808241
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0040713
work_keys_str_mv AT hoennerxavier enhancingtheuseofargossatellitedataforhomerangeandlongdistancemigrationstudiesofmarineanimals
AT whitingscottd enhancingtheuseofargossatellitedataforhomerangeandlongdistancemigrationstudiesofmarineanimals
AT hindellmarka enhancingtheuseofargossatellitedataforhomerangeandlongdistancemigrationstudiesofmarineanimals
AT mcmahoncliver enhancingtheuseofargossatellitedataforhomerangeandlongdistancemigrationstudiesofmarineanimals