Rueda-Uribe Cristina, Sargent Alyssa J, Echeverry-Galvis María Ángela, Camargo-Martínez Pedro A, Capellini Isabella, Lancaster Lesley T, Rico-Guevara Alejandro, Travis Justin M J
School of Biological Sciences University of Aberdeen Aberdeen UK.
Department of Biology University of Washington Seattle Washington USA.
Ecol Evol. 2024 Oct 10;14(10):e70405. doi: 10.1002/ece3.70405. eCollection 2024 Oct.
Automated radio telemetry systems (ARTS) have the potential to revolutionise our understanding of animal movement by providing a near-continuous record of individual locations in the wild. However, localisation errors in ARTS data can be very high, especially in natural landscapes with complex vegetation structure and topography. This curtails the research questions that may be addressed with this technology. We set up an ARTS grid in a valley with heterogeneous vegetation cover in the Colombian high Andes and applied an analytical pipeline to test the effectiveness of localisation methods. We performed calibration trials to simulate animal movement in high- or low-flight, or walking on the ground, and compared workflows with varying decisions related to signal cleaning, selection, smoothing, and interpretation, along with four multilateration approaches. We also quantified the influence of spatial features on the system's accuracy. Results showed large variation in localisation error, ranging between 0.4-43.4 m and 474-1929 m, depending on the localisation method used. We found that the selection of higher radio signal strengths and data smoothing based on the temporal autocorrelation are useful tools to improve accuracy. Moreover, terrain ruggedness, height of movement, vegetation type, and the location of animals inside or outside the grid area influence localisation error. In the case of our study system, thousands of location points were successfully estimated for two high-altitude hummingbird species that previously lacked movement data. Our case study on hummingbirds suggests ARTS grids can be used to estimate small animals' home ranges, associations with vegetation types, and seasonality in occurrence. We present a comparative localisation pipeline, highlighting the variety of possible decisions while processing radio signal data. Overall, this study provides guidance to improve the resolution of location estimates, broadening the application of this tracking technology in the study of the spatial ecology of wild populations.
自动无线电遥测系统（ARTS）有潜力彻底改变我们对动物活动的理解，因为它能提供野外个体位置的近乎连续记录。然而，ARTS数据中的定位误差可能非常高，尤其是在植被结构和地形复杂的自然景观中。这限制了可以用这项技术解决的研究问题。我们在哥伦比亚高安第斯山脉植被覆盖不均的山谷中建立了一个ARTS网格，并应用了一个分析流程来测试定位方法的有效性。我们进行了校准试验，以模拟动物在高空或低空飞行，或在地面行走的情况，并比较了与信号清理、选择、平滑和解释相关的不同决策的工作流程，以及四种多边定位方法。我们还量化了空间特征对系统精度的影响。结果表明，定位误差差异很大，根据所使用的定位方法，误差范围在0.4 - 43.4米和474 - 1929米之间。我们发现选择较高的无线电信号强度以及基于时间自相关的数据平滑是提高精度的有用工具。此外，地形崎岖程度、移动高度、植被类型以及动物在网格区域内或外的位置都会影响定位误差。就我们的研究系统而言，成功估计了数千个位置点，这些位置点来自两种以前缺乏活动数据的高海拔蜂鸟物种。我们对蜂鸟的案例研究表明，ARTS网格可用于估计小型动物的活动范围、与植被类型的关联以及出现的季节性。我们提出了一个比较定位流程，突出了处理无线电信号数据时各种可能的决策。总体而言，这项研究为提高位置估计的分辨率提供了指导，拓宽了这种跟踪技术在野生种群空间生态学研究中的应用。
