Detecting seasonal episodic-like spatio-temporal memory patterns using animal movement modelling

• Main Authors: Peter R. Thompson, Andrew E. Derocher, Mark A. Edwards, Mark A. Lewis
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: animal movement; cognitive map; grizzly bear; hidden Markov model; spatial memory; step- selection function; Ursus arctos
• Online Access: https://era.library.ualberta.ca/items/6235f4ac-1e78-4a06-8f7d-139f11f43f7a; https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-pcy8-2825

1. Spatial memory plays a role in the way animals perceive their environments, re-sulting in memory-informed movement patterns that are observable to ecologists. Developing mathematical techniques to understand how animals use memory in their environments allows for an increased understanding of animal cognition. 2. Here we describe a model that accounts for the memory of seasonal or ephem-eral qualities of an animal's environment. The model captures multiple behaviours at once by allowing for resource selection in the present time as well as long- distance navigations to previously visited locations within an animal's home range. 3. We performed a set of analyses on simulated data to test our model, determin-ing that it can provide informative results from as little as 1 year of discrete-time location data. We also show that the accuracy of model selection and parameter estimation increases with more location data. 4. This model has potential to identify a specific mechanism in which animals use memory to optimize their foraging, by revisiting temporally and predictably vari-able resources at consistent time- lags.