Multi-scale movement syndromes for comparative analyses of animal movement patterns

Movement Ecology · 7 authors, 10 centres

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FIDELITY 97%

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TL;DR

This paper introduces a multi-scale movement syndrome (MSMS) framework to compare animal movement patterns across four sympatric frugivorous mammals. The study found that feeding ecology was a better predictor of movement syndromes than locomotor or sensory adaptations, with three distinct syndromes emerging at the path and life-history phase levels. These findings have implications for understanding seed dispersal patterns and ecosystem processes.

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**Background:** Animal movement is a behavioral trait shaped by the need to find food, avoid predators, and reproduce. High-resolution tracking data allows detailed description of movement, but comparative analyses across species require a scale-specific framework. The authors propose a multi-scale movement syndrome (MSMS) framework with four hierarchical scales: (1) fine-scale movement steps, (2) daily paths, (3) life-history phases (e.g., home range), and (4) lifetime tracks. They apply the first three scales to compare movement patterns of four sympatric frugivorous mammals: kinkajous, white-nosed coatis, white-faced capuchins, and black-handed spider monkeys.

**Methods:** The study was conducted on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, from December 2015 to February 2016 and December 2017 to February 2018. A total of 46 animals were captured, chemically immobilized, and fitted with GPS collars (e-Obs) programmed to collect a burst of six consecutive (1 Hz) GPS locations every four minutes during active periods. The last fix of each burst was used for analysis. Outliers were removed using altitude thresholds and the ctmm package in R. For stationary periods, interpolated positions were modeled with a negative binomial distribution (mean error 5.46 m, dispersion 2.4 m). Movement was described at three scales: step (step length and turn angle distributions using Gamma and von Mises distributions), path (daily distance, straightness, sinuosity, proportion of time in clusters, area restricted search [ARS], and traveling), and life-history phase (turn angle correlation, residence time, time-to-return, volume of intersection, and max net squared displacement). ANOVAs and Principal Components Analysis (PCA) were used to compare individuals and species.

**Key Results:** A total of 671,602 GPS locations were obtained. At the step level, capuchins had significantly larger step lengths (17% larger, t=2.014, p<0.05) and kinkajous had significantly smaller turn angle concentration (26% smaller, t=2.015, p<0.04) than other species. However, PCA showed no obvious species-level clusters at the step scale. At the path level, daily distance moved differed significantly across species (kinkajou 3.3 km, coati 3.8 km, capuchin 3.7 km, spider monkey 3.1 km; F3,42=7.39, p=0.0007). Species-level differences explained 23–82% of variation in the five path metrics. PCA of individual averages revealed three syndromes: kinkajous (high sinuosity, low straightness, short distance, high cluster, low ARS), spider monkeys (low sinuosity, low straightness, short distance, high cluster, low ARS), and coati-capuchin (long distance, high ARS). At the life-history phase level, home range sizes varied greatly (kinkajou 29 ha, coati 168 ha, capuchin 117 ha, spider monkey 774 ha; F3,42=29.8, p<0.0001). PCA of life-history metrics showed similar clusters: spider monkeys had high net squared displacement and time to return, kinkajous had opposite tendencies, and coatis and capuchins fell in between.

**Clinical Implications:** While this study is not clinical, it has implications for ecology and conservation. The movement syndromes of these frugivores affect seed dispersal patterns, as they are responsible for ~20% of animal-dispersed seeds in Panamanian rainforests. The similar daily movement distances (~3–4 km) suggest similar potential for long-distance seed dispersal, but differences in path straightness and ARS may influence seed deposition locations. The MSMS framework provides a hierarchical approach for comparing animal movement across species, which can be applied to understand ecological processes and inform conservation strategies.

STUDY TYPE

other

SPECIALTY

animal science

SUMMARISED BY

AI pipeline

FIDELITY CHECK

97% · A

ORIGINAL PAPER

PMC10552421

Multi-scale movement syndromes for comparative analyses of animal movement patterns

Movement Ecology

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ABSTRACT

Background Animal movement is a behavioral trait shaped by the need to find food and suitable habitat, avoid predators, and reproduce. Using high-resolution tracking data, it is possible to describe movement in greater detail than ever before, which has led to many discoveries about the behavioral strategies of particular species. Recently, enough data been become available to enable a comparative approach, which has the potential to uncover general causes and consequences of variation in movement patterns, but which must be scale specific. Methods Here we introduce a new multi-scale movement syndrome (MSMS) framework for describing and comparing animal movements and use it to explore the behavior of four sympatric mammals. MSMS incorporates four hierarchical scales of animal movement: (1) fine-scale movement steps which accumulate into (2) daily paths which then, over weeks or months, form a (3) life-history phase. Finally, (4) the lifetime track of an individual consists of multiple life-history phases connected by dispersal or migration events. We suggest a series of metrics to describe patterns of movement at each of these scales and use the first three scales of this framework to compare the movement of 46 animals from four frugivorous mammal species. Results While subtle differences exist between the four species in their step-level movements, they cluster into three distinct movement syndromes in both path- and life-history phase level analyses. Differences in feeding ecology were a better predictor of movement patterns than a species’ locomotory or sensory adaptations. Conclusions Given the role these species play as seed dispersers, these movement syndromes could have important ecosystem implications by affecting the pattern of seed deposition. This multiscale approach provides a hierarchical framework for comparing animal movement for addressing ecological and evolutionary questions. It parallels scales of analyses for resource selection functions, offering the potential to connect movement process with emergent patterns of space use. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40462-022-00365-y.

CITATION EXPORT

Roland Kays, Ben Hirsch, Damien Caillaud et al.. Multi-scale movement syndromes for comparative analyses of animal movement patterns. Movement Ecology. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40462-022-00365-y

AUTHORS

7 · 10 CENTRES

Roland Kays, Ben Hirsch, Damien Caillaud, Rafael Mares, Shauhin Alavi, Rasmus Worsøe Havmøller, Margaret Crofoot

1https://ror.org/035jbxr46grid.438006.90000 0001 2296 9689Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Balboa, Republic of Panama
2https://ror.org/01bqnjh41grid.421582.80000 0001 2226 059XNorth Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh, NC USA
3https://ror.org/04tj63d06grid.40803.3f0000 0001 2173 6074Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC USA
4https://ror.org/04gsp2c11grid.1011.10000 0004 0474 1797College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD Australia
5grid.27860.3b0000 0004 1936 9684Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, CA USA
6https://ror.org/0524sp257grid.5337.20000 0004 1936 7603School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
7https://ror.org/026stee22grid.507516.00000 0004 7661 536XDepartment for the Ecology of Animal Societies, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Constance, Germany
8grid.5254.60000 0001 0674 042XResearch and Collections, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
9https://ror.org/0546hnb39grid.9811.10000 0001 0658 7699Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Constance, Germany
10https://ror.org/0546hnb39grid.9811.10000 0001 0658 7699Center for the Advanced Study of Collective Behavior, University of Konstanz, Constance, Germany