Integrative modelling of animal movement: incorporating in situ habitat and behavioural information for a migratory marine predator.

• Published in: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
• Main Authors: Bestley, Sophie, Jonsen, Ian D., Hindell, Mark A., Guinet, Christophe, Charrassin, Jean-Benoît
• Other Authors: Department of Biology (Dalhousie University), Dalhousie University Halifax, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies Horbat (IMAS), University of Tasmania Hobart, Australia (UTAS), Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS Paris), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS Paris), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Centre d'études biologiques de Chizé (CEBC), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Département Milieux et Peuplements Aquatiques, Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2013
• Subjects: [SDE]Environmental Sciences; Elephant Seal; Mirounga leonina; Southern Elephant Seal
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00760067; https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2012.2262

International audience A fundamental goal in animal ecology is to quantify how environmental (and other) factors influence individual movement, as this is key to understanding responsiveness of populations to future change. However, quantitative interpretation of individual-based telemetry data is hampered by the complexity of, and error within, these multi-dimensional data. Here, we present an integrative hierarchical Bayesian state-space modelling approach where, for the first time, the mechanistic process model for the movement state of animals directly incorporates both environmental and other behavioural information, and observation and process model parameters are estimated within a single model. When applied to a migratory marine predator, the southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina), we find the switch from directed to resident movement state was associated with colder water temperatures, relatively short dive bottom time and rapid descent rates. The approach presented here can have widespread utility for quantifying movement-behaviour (diving or other)-environment relationships across species and systems.