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Creators/Authors contains: "van Schalkwyk, Louis"

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  1. Animal movement behaviours are shaped by diverse factors, including resource availability and human impacts on the landscape. We generated home range estimates and daily movement rate estimates for 148 giraffe (Giraffaspp.) from all four species across Africa to evaluate the effects of environmental productivity and anthropogenic disturbance on space use. Using the continuous time movement modelling framework and a novel application of mixed effects meta-regression, we summarized overall giraffe space use and tested for the effects of resource availability and human impact on 95% autocorrelated kernel density estimate (AKDE) size and daily movement. The mean 95% AKDE was 356.4 km2and the mean daily movement was 14.1 km, both with marginally significant differences across species. We found significant negative effects of resource availability, and significant positive effects of resource heterogeneity and protected area overlap on 95% AKDE size. There were significant negative effects of overall anthropogenic disturbance and positive effects of the heterogeneity of anthropogenic disturbance on daily movements and 95% AKDE size. Our results provide unique insights into the interactive effects of resource availability and anthropogenic development on the movements of a large-bodied browser and highlight the potential impacts of rapidly changing landscapes on animal space-use patterns. 
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  2. Abstract Quantifying movement and demographic events of free‐ranging animals is fundamental to studying their ecology, evolution and conservation. Technological advances have led to an explosion in sensor‐based methods for remotely observing these phenomena. This transition to big data creates new challenges for data management, analysis and collaboration.We present the Movebank ecosystem of tools used by thousands of researchers to collect, manage, share, visualize, analyse and archive their animal tracking and other animal‐borne sensor data. Users add sensor data through file uploads or live data streams and further organize and complete quality control within the Movebank system. All data are harmonized to a data model and vocabulary. The public can discover, view and download data for which they have been given access to through the website, the Animal Tracker mobile app or by API. Advanced analysis tools are available through the EnvDATA System, the MoveApps platform and a variety of user‐developed applications. Data owners can share studies with select users or the public, with options for embargos, licenses and formal archiving in a data repository.Movebank is used by over 3,100 data owners globally, who manage over 6 billion animal location and sensor measurements across more than 6,500 studies, with thousands of active tags sending over 3 million new data records daily. These data underlie >700 published papers and reports. We present a case study demonstrating the use of Movebank to assess life‐history events and demography, and engage with citizen scientists to identify mortalities and causes of death for a migratory bird.A growing number of researchers, government agencies and conservation organizations use Movebank to manage research and conservation projects and to meet legislative requirements. The combination of historic and new data with collaboration tools enables broad comparative analyses and data acquisition and mapping efforts. Movebank offers an integrated system for real‐time monitoring of animals at a global scale and represents a digital museum of animal movement and behaviour. Resources and coordination across countries and organizations are needed to ensure that these data, including those that cannot be made public, remain accessible to future generations. 
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