Sennhenn-Reulen Holger, Diedhiou Langhalima, Klapproth Matthias, Zinner Dietmar
Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, German Primate Center, Leibniz-Institute for Primate Research, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany.
Leibniz ScienceCampus "Primate Cognition", German Primate Center/Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany.
Primate Biol. 2017 Jul 10;4(2):143-151. doi: 10.5194/pb-4-143-2017. eCollection 2017.
Daily travel distance (DTD), the distance an animal moves over the course of the day, is an important metric in movement ecology. It provides data with which to test hypotheses related to energetics and behaviour, e.g. impact of group size or food distribution on DTDs. The automated tracking of movements by applying GPS technology has become widely available and easy to implement. However, due to battery duration constraints, it is necessary to select a tracking-time resolution, which inevitably introduces an underestimation of the true underlying path distance. Here we give a quantification of this inherent systematic underestimation of DTDs for a terrestrial primate, the Guinea baboon. We show that sampling protocols with interval lengths from 1 to 120 min underestimate DTDs on average by 7 to 35 %. For longer time intervals (i.e. 60, 90, 120 min), the relative increase of deviation from the "true" trajectory is less pronounced than for shorter intervals. Our study provides first hints on the magnitude of error, which can be applied as a corrective when estimating absolute DTDs in calculations on travelling costs in terrestrial primates.
日移动距离（DTD），即动物在一天内移动的距离，是运动生态学中的一个重要指标。它提供了用于检验与能量学和行为相关假设的数据，例如群体大小或食物分布对日移动距离的影响。通过应用GPS技术自动跟踪动物运动已变得广泛可用且易于实施。然而，由于电池续航时间的限制，有必要选择一个跟踪时间分辨率，这不可避免地会导致对真实潜在路径距离的低估。在此，我们对一种陆生灵长类动物——几内亚狒狒的日移动距离这种固有的系统性低估进行了量化。我们表明，间隔长度从1到120分钟的采样方案平均低估日移动距离7%至35%。对于较长的时间间隔（即60、90、120分钟），与“真实”轨迹偏差的相对增加不如较短间隔时那么明显。我们的研究首次给出了误差大小的线索，在估算陆生灵长类动物旅行成本的计算中，当估算绝对日移动距离时，这些线索可作为一种校正方法。
