Movebank
Movebank is an online infrastructure to archive, share, manage, and analyze movement data.
Managed by the Max Planck Insitute, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, and University of Konstanz.
- 13,000 users (2,766 data owners)
- 548 taxa
- ca. 2400 studies
Movebank data model (Kranstauber et al. 2011)
Data Management
- Import data (GPS, Argos, bird rings, etc.), attributes, and other measurement from sensors (e.g. accelerometer). https://www.movebank.org/node/13
- Live data feeds (Argos PTT, GSM-GPS, Iridium GPS) are possible.
- Filter data based on duplicates, speed, or customized rules.
- Edit data (e.g. add/remove attributes, mark outliers, add behavior). Editing is faster in R (especially for larger datasets).
Data Sharing
- Data uploaded to Movebank has the same format facilitating collaborative work.
- Data owners decide on sharing permissions.
- Data can be dowloaded as .csv, Excel, ESRI, etc. from Movebank website or using the package ‘move’ for R.
- Tracking Data Map
Data Analysis
- Data exploration through visualization
- Visualization tools linking movement and accelerometer data to environmental variables.
- Add environmental data to tracking data using Env-DATA System. [Available environmental variables] (https://www.movebank.org/node/7471).
- Different interpolation methods available (this could be discussed in the lecture on environmental variables!)
- The Env-DATA Track Annotation Service will provide selected environmental variables upon request, which can be done from the Tracking Data Map.
- You need other Software to analyze data downloaded from Movebank.https://www.movebank.org/panel_software
Data Archive
- Data is archived in the Movebank Data Repository for long-term use.
- It’s a way of formally published a movement dataset. Data will be reviewed, licensed for re-use, and citable.
- Current number of data packages in the repository = 61
Support
- Movebank has a few forums and groups with different options of membership, but they are not very active.