Using movement ecology to improve conservation success

Human-induced rapid environmental changes are reshaping our world, forcing many animals to quickly adapt or perish. Behavioral reactions are in many cases the `first line of defense` an animal has against a changing environment, and animal movement is an integral part of virtually all types of animal behavior (e.g., foraging, social interactions, dispersal, etc.), making movement ecology central to species survival in an anthropogenic world. Understanding the four components that determine animal movement – navigation capacity, motion capacity, internal state, and the external environment can help us predict the impacts of anthropogenic disturbances, manage wildlife populations, and reveal unknown threats and opportunities. We can predict anthropogenic impacts on wild populations by understanding the constraints that operate on the different components of movement. Managing wildlife populations can be achieved by manipulating one or more movement components in order to increase or decrease the likelihood of an animal to move. Lastly, we can trace back changes in animals` movement trajectories to the corresponding changes in the animals` internal states and external environments in order to reveal the source for these changes, whether they are caused by human disturbances or by human conservation interventions. In this talk I will illustrate the abovementioned framework through examples from my own work and the works of others.