Research library
🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries
AI-curated summaries for the pride’s library — verify citations independently before citing.
150 summaries in Movement Ecology & Tracking
A movement ecology paradigm for unifying organismal movement research
PaperNathan and colleagues proposed a unifying framework that organizes the study of all organismal movement around four components: the internal state that motivates movement, the navigation capacity that…
Ran Nathan, Wayne M. Getz, Eloy Revilla, Marcel Holyoak, Ronen Kadmon, David Saltz, Peter E. Smouse · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2008
A radio-tracking system for wild animals
PaperCochran and Lord described one of the first practical VHF radio-tracking systems built for free-ranging wildlife, pairing miniaturized transmitters with directional receiving antennas to fix animal po…
William W. Cochran, Rexford D. Lord Jr. · The Journal of Wildlife Management · 1963
A range-wide model of landscape connectivity and conservation for the jaguar, Panthera onca
PaperRabinowitz and Zeller built a continental model of jaguar connectivity spanning from Mexico to Argentina, identifying the corridors linking known jaguar populations across the species' entire range. U…
Alan Rabinowitz, Kathy A. Zeller · Biological Conservation · 2010
A southern California freeway is a physical and social barrier to gene flow in carnivores
PaperRiley and colleagues combined radio-telemetry with genetic analysis of bobcats and coyotes split by a major Los Angeles freeway, showing that the road acted as both a physical and a social barrier to…
Seth P. D. Riley, John P. Pollinger, Raymond M. Sauvajot, Eric C. York, Cassity Bromley, Todd K. Fuller, Robert K. Wayne · Molecular Ecology · 2006
Adaptive social strategies in a solitary carnivore
PaperUsing GPS telemetry and field observation, Elbroch and colleagues documented that pumas, long considered strictly solitary, engage in structured social interactions, including tolerated food sharing a…
L. Mark Elbroch, Michael Levy, Mark Lubell, Howard Quigley, Anthony Caragiulo · Science Advances · 2017
An analysis of mountain lion predation upon mule deer and elk in the Idaho Primitive Area
PaperHornocker combined winter snow-tracking with radio-telemetry to quantify how cougars hunt mule deer and elk in central Idaho. By relocating collared lions and back-tracking to their kills, he estimate…
Maurice G. Hornocker · Wildlife Monographs · 1970
Analyzing animal movements using Brownian bridges
PaperHorne and colleagues introduced the Brownian bridge movement model to home-range and movement analysis, explicitly incorporating the time order of locations and the uncertainty of an animal's path bet…
Jon S. Horne, Edward O. Garton, Stephen M. Krone, Jesse S. Lewis · Ecology · 2007
Animal ecology meets GPS-based radiotelemetry: a perfect storm of opportunities and challenges
ReviewThis introductory review framed a special issue on GPS telemetry, arguing that cheap, dense location data had created both unprecedented opportunity and serious analytical risk for movement ecology. T…
Francesca Cagnacci, Luigi Boitani, Roger A. Powell, Mark S. Boyce · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B · 2010
Applications of step-selection functions in ecology and conservation
ReviewThurfjell, Ciuti, and Boyce reviewed the rapidly expanding use of step-selection functions, which model habitat selection by comparing each realized movement step with a set of available alternative s…
Henrik Thurfjell, Simone Ciuti, Mark S. Boyce · Movement Ecology · 2014
Behavioral responses of terrestrial mammals to COVID-19 lockdowns
PaperTucker and a global consortium exploited the COVID-19 lockdowns, the so-called anthropause, as a natural experiment, comparing GPS movement of many terrestrial mammal species during strict lockdowns w…
Marlee A. Tucker and colleagues · Science · 2023
Determining minimum habitat areas and habitat corridors for cougars
PaperBeier combined population modeling with movement and habitat data to estimate how much habitat a cougar population needs to persist and how corridors connecting habitat patches reduce extinction risk.…
Paul Beier · Conservation Biology · 1993
Dispersal of juvenile cougars in fragmented habitat
PaperBeier radio-tracked juvenile cougars dispersing through the fragmented Santa Ana Mountains of southern California, documenting how young animals leave their natal areas and search for territory amid e…
Paul Beier · The Journal of Wildlife Management · 1995
Distinguishing technology from biology: a critical review of the use of GPS telemetry data in ecology
ReviewHebblewhite and Haydon offered a candid appraisal of whether the flood of GPS telemetry data had actually advanced ecological understanding or merely generated description. They reviewed how technolog…
Mark Hebblewhite, Daniel T. Haydon · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B · 2010
Estimating cougar predation rates from GPS location clusters
PaperAnderson and Lindzey pioneered the use of GPS location clusters to detect cougar kills, exploiting the fact that a lion lingers at a carcass to feed over one or more days, producing a tight cluster of…
Charles R. Anderson Jr., Frederick G. Lindzey · The Journal of Wildlife Management · 2003
Evaluating global positioning system telemetry techniques for estimating cougar predation parameters
PaperKnopff and colleagues rigorously evaluated how GPS cluster methods perform for estimating cougar predation, testing how fix interval, search protocol, and model assumptions affect inferences about kil…
Kyle H. Knopff, Aliah A. Knopff, Mark S. Boyce · The Journal of Wildlife Management · 2009
Factors influencing the effectiveness of wildlife underpasses in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
PaperClevenger and Waltho analyzed how the design and placement of wildlife underpasses beneath the Trans-Canada Highway in Banff National Park affected their use by different species, drawing on one of th…
Anthony P. Clevenger, Nigel Waltho · Conservation Biology · 2000
Fear of humans as apex predators has landscape-scale impacts from mountain lions to mice
PaperSuraci and colleagues extended the ecology-of-fear framework to whole communities, using playbacks of human voices across the Santa Cruz Mountains to test how fear of humans cascades through a food we…
Justin P. Suraci, Michael Clinchy, Liana Y. Zanette, Christopher C. Wilmers · Ecology Letters · 2019
Fear of the human super predator reduces feeding time in large carnivores
PaperSmith and colleagues, working with the Santa Cruz Puma Project, used playback experiments at puma kill sites, broadcasting human voices versus a control of frog calls, while monitoring the cats' behav…
Justine A. Smith, Justin P. Suraci, Michael Clinchy, Ayana Crawford, Devin Roberts, Liana Y. Zanette, Christopher C. Wilmers · Proceedings of the Royal Society B · 2017
Individual behaviors dominate the dynamics of an urban mountain lion population isolated by roads
PaperRiley and colleagues used GPS telemetry and genetics to show that the small puma population in the Santa Monica Mountains was severely isolated by surrounding freeways, with the 101 in particular near…
Seth P. D. Riley, Laurel E. K. Serieys, John P. Pollinger, Jeffrey A. Sikich, Lisa Dalbeck, Robert K. Wayne, Holly B. Ernest · Current Biology · 2014
Instantaneous energetics of puma kills reveal advantage of felid sneak attacks
PaperWilliams and colleagues built custom SMART collars combining GPS, accelerometers, and physiological calibration to measure, for the first time, the moment-to-moment energy expenditure of wild pumas as…
Terrie M. Williams, Lisa Wolfe, Tracy Davis, Traci Kendall, Beau Richter, Yiwei Wang, Caleb Bryce, G. Hugh Elkaim, Christopher C. Wilmers · Science · 2014
Integrated step selection analysis: bridging the gap between resource selection and animal movement
PaperAvgar and colleagues developed integrated step selection analysis, which simultaneously estimates habitat selection and the animal's underlying movement kernel, the distribution of step lengths and tu…
Tal Avgar, Jonathan R. Potts, Mark A. Lewis, Mark S. Boyce · Methods in Ecology and Evolution · 2016
Kernel methods for estimating the utilization distribution in home-range studies
PaperWorton introduced kernel density estimation to home-range analysis, providing a way to estimate the utilization distribution, a probability surface describing how intensively an animal uses each part…
Bruce J. Worton · Ecology · 1989
Landscape structure and asymmetrical inter-patch connectivity in a metapopulation of the endangered Iberian lynx
PaperFerreras analyzed how landscape structure governs movement between habitat patches in the Iberian lynx metapopulation of Donana and surrounding areas, showing that connectivity was asymmetrical, dispe…
Pablo Ferreras · Biological Conservation · 2001
Locomotion dynamics of hunting in wild cheetahs
PaperWilson and colleagues fitted free-ranging cheetahs with custom collars carrying GPS and inertial sensors to capture the biomechanics of hunting in the wild rather than on a track. The data overturned…
Alan M. Wilson, J. C. Lowe, K. Roskilly, P. E. Hudson, K. A. Golabek, J. W. McNutt · Nature · 2013
Mountain lion social organization in the Idaho Primitive Area
PaperThis landmark monograph reported one of the first multi-year radio-telemetry studies of cougars, conducted in the rugged Idaho Primitive Area. By collaring and following individual lions, the team doc…
John Seidensticker, Maurice Hornocker, Wilbur Wiles, John Messick · Wildlife Monographs · 1973
Movements and activities of snow leopards in Southwestern Mongolia
PaperMcCarthy, Fuller, and Munkhtsog reported one of the first detailed studies of snow leopard movement, using VHF telemetry to track cats in the mountains of southwestern Mongolia. Despite the constraint…
Thomas M. McCarthy, Todd K. Fuller, Bariushaa Munkhtsog · Biological Conservation · 2005
Moving in the Anthropocene: Global reductions in terrestrial mammalian movements
PaperTucker and a large international consortium pooled GPS tracking data from many terrestrial mammal species to test whether human footprint constrains animal movement, finding that mammals in areas of h…
Marlee A. Tucker and colleagues · Science · 2018
Observing the unwatchable through acceleration logging of animal behavior
PaperThis review synthesized how tri-axial accelerometers had become a workhorse for inferring behavior in animals that are difficult or impossible to watch directly, including cryptic and nocturnal carniv…
Danielle D. Brown, Roland Kays, Martin Wikelski, Rory Wilson, A. Peter Klimley · Animal Biotelemetry · 2013
Prying into the intimate details of animal lives: use of a daily diary on animals
PaperThis paper introduced the daily diary concept, a multi-sensor logger recording tri-axial acceleration, magnetometry, and environmental variables at high frequency to reconstruct an animal's behavior a…
Rory P. Wilson, Emily L. C. Shepard, Nikolai Liebsch · Endangered Species Research · 2008
Research overview: African leopard ranging and GPS studies
OverviewLeopards are among the most adaptable big cats, persisting from deserts to forests to the edges of cities, and this overview synthesizes telemetry research on their ranging across African landscapes.…