Institut für Biologie der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg
Date of this Version
2010
Document Type
Article
Citation
Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei (2010) band 11: 281-290.
Abstract
Behavioral observations of free ranging animals can provide important insight into many aspects of their biology but are not without problems. The recent development of GPS technology allows to remotely collect high precision location data at fixed intervals. We tested whether it is possible to classify the behavior of a Przewalski’s horse in the Mongolian Gobi into Resting, Grazing and Moving based on GPS locations collected at 15 minute intervals by comparing GPS data with direct observations. Although behavioral categories lasting for 15 minutes could by fairly reliably separated based on the distances covered between successive fixes, almost half the dataset consisted of mixed intervals. Thus, fifteen minute intervals are too long to catch one behavioral category which makes classification based on GPS fixes alone problematic. Although our present approach was not particularly successful, we believe that using GPS data in combination with activity sensor and additionally including the geometry of locations holds great potential for inferring main behavioral categories in free ranging equids.
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Comments
Copyright 2010, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle Wittenberg, Halle (Saale). Used by permission.