Randomizing GPS Tracking Trajectories to Model Social Structure in Feral Swine, Lightning Talk (7 min)

London, Ontario

Using GPS tracking, researchers can detect contacts between animals, which can be used to quantify and describe associations between animals in networks or graphs. However, animals may come in contact with each other for a variety of reasons, such as the distribution of resources, or social behaviour. From the GPS tracking data, we can develop null-model association networks to test for various reasons for association rates between individuals. Here, we randomize the GPS tracking data of individual feral swine by day, while preserving the within-day trajectories to generate null models where movement is still affected by the distribution of resources or barriers on the landscape, but synchronous movement is disrupted by the reordering of days. Using this method, we find evidence to support the existence of previously identified social groups, as well as unidentified social groups in the study population. We perform and present our analyses in R.

https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/wlgisday/2020/lighteningtalks/13