New paper on quantifying dynamic interactions

This paper explores combining point-based and path-based dynamic interaction metrics to explore whether movement differences associated with proximity can be detected. Differences in simulated trajectories for ovement parameters ranging from step length and relative angle to more complex parameters such as persistence index were tested. Movement was often different for simulated ‘leader’ and ‘follower’ trajectories, and different interaction-related movement behaviors were explored using data on black-backed jackals in Etosha National Park.

Gordon Research Conference on Animal Movement

Jennifer was invited to participate in a panel on Career Routes in Movement Ecology: The Academic World and Beyond at the Gordon Research Seminar at the Renaissance Tuscany Il Ciocco in Lucca (Barga), Italy. The seminar was held in conjunction with the conference on “Animal Movement as a Link Between Ecology, Evolution and Behavior.”

Namibia/Botswana/Zimbabwe

Jennifer spent several weeks in Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe over the winter break. Part of this was related to a new project studying interactions between jackals in Etosha National Park.

Wild dog, Hwange National Park
Brown Hyena, Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park
Black-backed jackal, Etosha National Park
Lion cubs, Etosha National Park

New paper on Science of Movement in IJGIS

Jennifer was a co-author on a new foresight paper with Harvey Miller, Somayeh Dodge, and Gil Bohrer: ‘Towards an integrated science of movement: converging research on animal movement ecology and human mobility science.” This paper was a result of two NSF-funded workshops on movement analysis in Nov. 2016 (UT-Austin) and May 2017 (OSU).

Jennifer invited to give seminar at University of Amsterdam

I was invited to give a seminar at the Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) at the University of Amsterdam. The visit coincided with King’s Day, a national holiday to celebrate the King’s birthday.

Special Issue on Spatial Ecology in IJGIS

CFP for the 5th special issue on Spatial Ecology in International Journal of Geographical Information Science is announced.

Special Issue Editors:

Assoc Prof Jennifer Miller, University of Texas at Austin, USA;

Assoc Prof Shawn Laffan, University of NSW, Australia; 

Prof Andrew Skidmore, ITC, University of Twente, The Netherlands;

Prof Janet Franklin, University of California-Riverside, USA

A 5th special issue on spatial ecology has been approved by the Editors and Publisher of the International Journal of GIS. You are encouraged to submit relevant and high quality manuscripts for this special issue (see details below). This special issue continues the tradition of Spatial Ecology publications in the IJGIS.

For this special issue, we are seeking the submission of papers from ecological and related environmental studies, as well as more technical articles including topics such as spatial data infrastructure relevant to ecological applications. We are especially interested in special and novel ways of addressing spatial ecology questions, managing spatial ecological data, and advancing open science in spatial ecology.

Key words and topics for this special issue include scale, geovisualization, spatial data infrastructure for ecological (biodiversity) data, methods to derive ancillary data required for ecological modeling (climate, terrain, soils etc), animal movement including both spatial and temporal analysis, phenology, global databases for ecological studies (biodiversity, NPP, carbon etc), fragmentation and connectivity, biodiversity hotspots and endemism, physical vegetation structure for biomass assessment, palaeoecology and reconstructing past environments with respect to climate change, innovative methods and models for spatial ecological analysis, and open science and new directions for spatial ecology research. Applications across terrestrial, marine and atmospheric ecology are welcome. Relevant cross-over papers between GIS and remote sensing will also be considered.

The deadline for submission of papers is 15-July-2018. The anticipated publication date will be in 2019.

Papers are to be submitted via http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ijgis. Please choose ‘Special Issue Paper’ from the Manuscript Types field when doing so.