Animals are sentinels of environmental change, and animal telemetry is a commonly used tool to quantify habitat use and help understand environmental changes. NASA data can be used to characterize the environmental parameters that infer the habitats that animals use. This training course will provide participants with an overview of animal tracking sensors, NASA’s history of animal tracking, and the types of remote sensing data that can be paired with animal telemetry. Because animal telemetry collects frequent animal location data, it is important to consider time-matched remote sensing in data analyses. In remote marine environments, for example, Level 3 and Level 4 products provide the most complete spatiotemporal coverage, such as OSCAR for ocean surface currents.
Participants will then learn how to integrate telemetry and remote sensing data by applying a basic data standardization process to animal tracking data, visualizing the animals’ distribution via home ranges with utilization distributions, downloading remote sensing data, and characterizing animals’ habitats in a species distribution model to infer habitat use. The balance of tradeoffs (spatiotemporal mismatches; computational power and time) from pairing remotely sensed data with animal tracks will be discussed. Examples for both marine and terrestrial environments will be provided.
Learning Objectives:
- Identify the types of animal tracking tags and sensors that are commonly used in animal tracking.
- Identify the types of remote sensing data and products that can be used for species distribution models and step-selection functions.
- Recognize the process for integrating remote sensing and animal tracking data in species distribution models and step selection functions to facilitate an understanding of animal movements in relation to their environment.
- Recognize key takeaways from examples of terrestrial and marine applications that inform and characterize animals’ habitats.
Course Dates: May 20 & 22, 2025
Time: 12:00-13:30 EDT (UTC-4)
To Register: https://go.nasa.gov/4iPMFWW
Audience: This training is primarily intended for movement ecologists and natural resource managers. Remote sensing scientists developing products usable by the primary audience may also find this training of interest.
Course Format: Two 1.5-hour sessions including Q&A
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