A generic web application to visualize and understand movements of tagged animals

The goal of this project was to maximize the value of expensive animal tagging data. We developed an interactive web application to help scientists understand patterns in their own tagging datasets and to help scientists, funders and agencies communicate tagging data to decision-makers and to the general public. Interactive visualizations have emerged recently as a valuable tool for identifying patterns in complex datasets that are typical of ecological tagging studies. To make it easier and faster for users to gain access to interactive movement visualizations, we developed the algorithms and web-based software platform to allow users to upload their own data into a data visualization showing dynamic movement of tagged individuals across habitats. We developed algorithms that are flexible enough to accommodate any animal tagging data and provide a user-friendly interface that encourages users to learn about their data. We used six test cases, ranging from 1-dimensional stream networks to 3-dimensional marine habitats, to test the application and to get feedback from data owners on application usability.

See blog post on this project here.

Principal Investigator : Benjamin Letcher
Co-Investigator : Jeff Walker
Cooperator/Partner : Theodore R Castro-Santos, Evan Childress, Joseph D Clark, Evan H Grant