Animal movements are vital for mankind, since the majority of our vegetable food is dependent on animal pollination. Animal movements, in particular over large distances, can be in addition, life-threatening if pathogens are spread. Global research is therefore important to identify and protect ecosystem services and to understand the global pathways of pathogens. Due to rapid technological developments, wildlife has been equipped with miniaturized transmitters that transmit their position for 20 years. In recent years, the Movebank, developed and operated by the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior in Radolfzell and the University of Konstanz, has become the global database standard for animal movement data. On Movebank movement data can be stored, shared, visualized, analyzed and published.
The latest generation of animal transmitters transmits not only the position but also a variety of other information such as acceleration, air pressure and compass direction of the movement or even body temperature and heartbeat.
With this project we want to make Movebank fit for these new transmitters and the associated larger data volumes and information content. In concrete terms, this means that a database concept and a metadata structure must be developed and implemented in order to store, analyze and publish all these new data in a meaningful way. Analysis software will be developed and implemented, which allows to visualize and explore the transaction data with all the additional information. As a further step, we want to involve the very interested public even more in our research as citizens' scientists. For a meaningful evaluation of the position and onboard sensors, more detailed maps and photos of the region are often necessary, which are better resolved than available satellite images. For this purpose, we want to publish calls on the renewed Movebank webpage to have aerial photographs taken with drones of certain regions. We also want to continue to support the active open source community that has developed around Movebank to develop analysis tools that can be used by every scientist and citizen scientist to analyze their own and public animal movement data on Movebank. By expanding our AniMove Summer School and publishing e-learning modules, we will train young scientists worldwide in the analysis of animal movements using Movebank.
As Movebank has become the worldwide standard for motion data, the responsibility for this will be transferred to a Central Scientific Unit of the MPI in the near future. This will ensure the long-term operation of Movebank.
Project partner:
- Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
- Communication, Information and Media Center of the University of Konstanz
- Department of Computer Science in the Life Sciences, University of Konstanz
Project duration:
01.06.2019 – 31.05.2023
Contact persons at KIM:
- Matthias Landwehr, +49 7531 88-2551 E-Mail
- Gabriel Schneider, +49 7531 88-3065 E-Mail
- Dr. Ilona Lang, +49 7531 88-3709 E-Mail
Project funding:
Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst Baden-Württemberg