Revisitation analysis uncovers spatio‐temporal patterns in animal movement data

Abstract

Animals regularly return to locations such as foraging patches, nests, dens, watering holes, or movement corridors, and these revisited locations are often sites of ecological significance. Analyzing the temporal and spatial pattern of revisitation can lead to important insights into the life history and ecology of populations. We introduce the R package 'recurse' to calculate revisitations to locations in the movement trajectory or other locations for one or multiple individuals. The package also calculates metrics such as residence time and time between visits. It can be used to quantitatively identify frequently used sites (e.g. dens, nests, foraging locations), to examine patterns of revisitation and link them with covariates such as habitat features or climatic data, and to address conservation questions of interest about specific locations. We present an example application with movement trajectory data from a turkey vulture Cathartes aura during the breeding season and demonstrate analyzing recursions, specific locations, seasonal and daily temporal patterns, and visit timing. The 'recurse' package should be of interest both to ecologists looking to analyze their movement data and to conservationists needing site-specific information for management and conservation actions.

Juvenile Sandhill Cranes exhibit wider ranging and more exploratory movements than adults during the breeding season

“…We calculated additional movement-based metrics using buffered areas around each observed location. Specifically, we calculated the number of revisits to and the residence time (defined as the cumulative amount of time spent throughout the year) in all buffered areas using the 'recurse' package in program R (Barraquand & Benhamou 2008, R Core Team 2016, Bracis et al 2018. We used a radius of 150 m, approximately twice the length of the average step length, to define buffers around each observed location (Bracis et al 2018).…”

“…We used a radius of 150 m, approximately twice the length of the average step length, to define buffers around each observed location (Bracis et al . ).…”

Variability in nomadism: environmental gradients modulate the movement behaviors of dryland ungulates

“…Recursive movement metrics.-Recursive movement metrics (e.g., repeated movements to previously visited areas) have been used as a useful proxy for repeated use of specific areas (Berger-Tal and Bar-David 2015), in particular for identifying revisits to high-quality foraging patches by large herbivores Riotte-Lambert 2012, Giotto et al 2015) and for classifying movement patterns across vertebrate taxa (Abrahms et al 2017). For each individual, we calculated three recursive movement metrics, revisit rate, residence time, and return time, using the recurse R package (Bracis 2018, Bracis et al 2018. Revisit rate is defined as the total number of visits to previously visited locations within a defined radius, residence time is defined as the total amount of time an individual spends inside a defined radius across all visits, and return time is the amount of time elapsed between visits (Bracis et al 2018).…”

“…For each individual, we calculated three recursive movement metrics, revisit rate, residence time, and return time, using the recurse R package (Bracis 2018, Bracis et al 2018. Revisit rate is defined as the total number of visits to previously visited locations within a defined radius, residence time is defined as the total amount of time an individual spends inside a defined radius across all visits, and return time is the amount of time elapsed between visits (Bracis et al 2018).…”

Analysis of movement recursions to detect reproductive events and estimate their fate in central place foragers

“…Recursive movement patterns can reveal when and where birds are breeding, and whether they are successful. Recursive movements are repeated returns to a same location, and they are indicative of places of ecological relevance for many taxa, such as dens, nests, and foraging patches (Berger-Tal & Bar-David, 2015;Bracis, Bildstein, & Mueller, 2018). Recursive movement patterns can also provide insight into life-history: some animals are tied to specific locations in specific phases of their life cycle and exhibit recursive movements to and from those locations (Bracis et al, 2018).…”