Approaches for Testing Uniformity Hypothesis in Angular Data of Mega-Herbivores
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Date
2016-03
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Abstract
Circularstatistics is an area not used verymuch by ecologists to describe animal movement patterns.Nevertheless,the
connection betweenthe evaluation of temporalrecurring events and theanalysis of directional data haveconverged in several papers,
and showcircularstatistics to be an outstandingtoolforunderstanding animal movementbetter. Theaim of thischapter is to evaluate
the applications of circularstatisticaltests to check uniformityhypothesis in animal movement and its potential interpretationwithin
the general framework of movementecology. Four methods of circularstatistics: Rayleigh’s,Watson’s,Rao’s spacing and Kuiper’s test
based on the mean resultantlengthare applied to examine theuniformityhypothesis of GPS derived telemetry data of elephant
movementcollected fromKrugerNationalPark(KNP) South Africa.Overall,circularstatisticaluniformitytests methods represent a
usefultoolfor evaluation of directionalityelephant movement with applications including(i) assessment of animal foragingstrategies;
(ii)determination of orientation in response to landscape features and (iii)determination of therelativestrengths of landscape features
present binacomplex environment.
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Keywords
Circularstatistics, animalmovement, turn angles, uniformityhypothesis
Citation
International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR) Volume 5 Issue 3