MoveTrait.v0.1

Preprint: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.15.643440v1

Code to reproduce the MoveTraits database version 0.1

MoveTraits - Integrating animal behaviour into trait-based ecology

Larissa Beumer^1,2,*, Anne G. Hertel³*, Raphael Royauté⁴, Marlee A. Tucker⁵, Jörg Albrecht¹, Roxanne S. Beltran⁶, Francesca Cagnacci⁷, Sarah C. Davidson^8,9, Nandintsetseg Dejid¹, Roland Kays^10,11, Andrea Kölzsch^8,12, Ashley Lohr¹⁰, Eike L. Neuschulz¹, Kamran Safi⁸, Anne K. Scharf⁸, Matthias Schleuning¹, Martin Wikelski^8,9 and Thomas Mueller^1,13

* joint first-authors

1 Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (SBiK-F), Frankfurt am Main, Germany
2 Department of Arctic Biology, The University Centre in Svalbard, Longyearbyen, Svalbard
3 Behavioural Ecology, Department of Biology, Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, Planegg-Martinsried, Germany
4 Université Paris-Saclay, INRAE, AgroParisTech, UMR EcoSys, 91120 Palaiseau, France
5 Department of Environmental Science, Radboud Institute for Biological and Environmental Sciences, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
6 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, USA
7 Animal Ecology Unit, Research and Innovation Centre, Edmund Mach Foundation, Trento, Italy
8 Department of Migration, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Radolfzell, Germany
9 Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Constance, Germany
10 North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh, USA
11 Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, USA
12 Ecology Department, Radboud Institute for Biological and Environmental Sciences, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
13 Department of Biological Sciences, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

✉ For correspondence regarding the code in this repository, please
contact: Anne Hertel or Anne Scharf
(anne.g.hertel@gmail.com, ascharf@ab.mpg.de)

In this repository you can find all code to reproduce the MoveTraits database version 0.1 (effective March 2025). The database uses two different sources:

1. an open access dataframe (https://zenodo.org/records/7704108, file "Tucker_Road_Spatial.rds") containing the raw data underlying the analyses in Tucker et al. 2023 (https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abo6499). These data cover the period of February - May 2019 and 2020 (we are only using data from 2019).
2. open access datasets on Movebank (https://www.movebank.org/)

An overview of all studies included in the final database and their data owners can be found in TableS3.pdf in the OUTPUT folder.

Movebank data are downloaded and cleaned in a series of scripts under Source code:

• 01a_movebank_studies_to_download.R R code to identify movebank studies to download
• 01b_Download_movebank_data.R R code to download movebank studies
• 02a_Clean_movebank_data.R R code to clean individual move2 objects
• 02b_DuplicatedIndividualsAcrossStudies.R R code to identify duplicated individuals across movebank studies
• 02c_convert_amt_SubsetTo1h.R R code to resample individual data to an hourly rate and save them as amt track object
• 02e_remove_studies_manually.R R code to remove studies manually that were not approved to be included in the database

To reproduce the database effective March 2025 please use the tables provided under DATA

• full_table_all_studies.rds
• referenceTableStudies_ALL_excludedColumn.rds

Please keep in mind that the full raw dataset to download to reproduce the database is about 4.25GB. To test the wokrflow you may download a subset of the data.

Due to their different input formats, traits from the two data sources are analyzed in separate R scripts using an identical workflow:

• 03a_MoveTraits_database_Tucker.Rmd
• 03b_MoveTraits_database_Movebank.R

The processed movement trait databases (at the species, individual, and within-individual level) are merged in script 04_merge_database.R and are provided under OUTPUT/db_MoveTraits.v0.1:

• MoveTrait.v0.1_species.sum_20250311.rds
• MoveTrait.v0.1_individual.sum_20250311.rds
• MoveTrait.v0.1_withinindividual_20250311.rds

Column description - metadata

• study_id Movebank study identifier
• individual_id Individual identifier
• species species binomial name
• common_name species common name
• class mammal or bird
• movement.mode walk, swim, fly, arboreal
• sex m (male), f (female), u (unidentified)
• animal_mass mass in grams
• animal_life_stage data owner defined column indicating animal age in years or life stage as eg subadult or adult
• source movebank effective march 2025 or Tucker2023
• mean.longitude mean longitude of an individuals entire track
• mean.latitude mean latitude of an individuals entire track
• median_timelag_mins median GPS fix interval
• tracking_duration_days total tracking duration in days
• tracking_start_date tracking start date
• tracking_end_date tracking end date
• contact_person_name data owner and person to contact
• license_type open access license type
• citation recommended citation for the dataset

Column description - traits

Displacement

Hourly (1h), daily (24h) displacement

• n1h, n24h
• d1h.mean, d24h.mean
• d1h.median, d24h.median
• d1h.cv, d24h.cv
• d1h.95, d24h.95
• d1h.05, d24h.05

Maximum displacement

Maximum daily (24h), weekly (7d), annual (12m) displacement

• n.dmax24h.days, n.dmax7d.weeks, n.dmax12m.years
• dmax24h.mean, dmax7d.mean, dmax12m.mean
• dmax24h.median, dmax7d.median, dmax12m.median
• dmax24h.cv, dmax7d.cv, dmax12m.cv
• dmax24h.95, dmax7d.95, dmax12m.95
• dmax24h.05, dmax7d.05, dmax12m.05

Range size

Daily (24h), weekly (7d), monthly (1m), annual (12m) range size (Minimum Convex Polygon)

• n.mcp24h.days, n.mcp7d.weeks, n.mcp1m.months, n.mcp24m.years
• mcp24h.mean, mcp7d.mean, mcp1m.mean, mcp24m.mean
• mcp24h.median, mcp7d.median, mcp1m.median, mcp24h.median
• mcp24h.cv, mcp7d.cv, mcp1m.cv, mcp24m.cv
• mcp24h.95, mcp7d.95, mcp1m.95, mcp24m.95
• mcp24h.05, mcp7d.05, mcp1m.05, mcp24m.05

Intensity of use

Daily (24h), monthly (1m), annual (12m) intensity of use

• n.iou24h.days, n.iou1m.month, n.iou12m.year
• iou24h.mean, iou1m.mean, iou12m.mean
• iou24h.median, iou1m.median, iou12m.median
• iou24h.cv, iou1m.cv, mcp1m.cv, iou12m.cv
• iou24h.95, iou1m.95, mcp1m.95, iou12m.95
• iou24h.05, iou1m.05, mcp1m.05, iou12m.05

Diurnality

• n.di.days
• di.mean
• di.median
• di.cv
• di.95
• di.05