A path reconstruction method integrating dead-reckoning and position fixes applied to humpback whales
PW received a PhD studentship with matched funding from The Netherlands Ministry of Defence (administered by TNO) and the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NE/J500276/1). The 3S2 project was funded by the US Office of Naval Research (N00014-10-1-0355), the Norwegian Ministry of Defence, and T...
Published in: | Movement Ecology |
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Main Authors: | , , |
Other Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
2017
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10023/11976 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40462-015-0061-6 |
Summary: | PW received a PhD studentship with matched funding from The Netherlands Ministry of Defence (administered by TNO) and the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NE/J500276/1). The 3S2 project was funded by the US Office of Naval Research (N00014-10-1-0355), the Norwegian Ministry of Defence, and The Netherlands Ministry of Defence. Part of this work was supported by the Multi-study Ocean acoustics Human effects Analysis (MOCHA) project funded by the US Office of Naval Research (N00014-12-1-0204). BACKGROUND: Detailed information about animal location and movement is often crucial in studies of natural behaviour and how animals respond to anthropogenic activities. Dead-reckoning can be used to infer such detailed information, but without additional positional data this method results in uncertainty that grows with time. Combining dead-reckoning with new Fastloc-GPS technology should provide good opportunities for reconstructing georeferenced fine-scale tracks, and should be particularly useful for marine animals that spend most of their time under water. We developed a computationally efficient, Bayesian state-space modelling technique to estimate humpback whale locations through time, integrating dead-reckoning using on-animal sensors with measurements of whale locations using on-animal Fastloc-GPS and visual observations. Positional observation models were based upon error measurements made during calibrations. RESULTS: High-resolution 3-dimensional movement tracks were produced for 13 whales using a simple process model in which errors caused by water current movements, non-location sensor errors, and other dead-reckoning errors were accumulated into a combined error term. Positional uncertainty quantified by the track reconstruction model was much greater for tracks with visual positions and few or no GPS positions, indicating a strong benefit to using Fastloc-GPS for track reconstruction. Compared to tracks derived only from position fixes, the inclusion of dead-reckoning data greatly improved the level ... |
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