New Technology Yields ‘Movement Ecology’

by Matt Ball on February 3, 2009

mormoncricket

The application of GPS, radio telemetry and other tracking and mapping devices to the movements of the natural world is leading to a new discipline that’s being termed ‘movement ecology’. Automated Radio Telemetry is a tracking system that relies on tall radio transmitters that monitor devices planted on individuals, track unique radio signatures, and triangulate the position to monitor those individuals around the clock. The transmitters are now tiny and light, allowing scientists to tag bugs and even plant seeds. This practice of tracking and analyzing the movements and interaction of natural systems has been ongoing for years, but the new tools and systems to analyze the data, is spurring a new research that is yielding surprising results and leading to the creation of a whole new scientific discipline.

The December 2008 edition of the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), contains a 76-page special feature on movement ecology, edited by Prof. Ran Nathan, who heads the Movement Ecology Laboratory in the Department of Evolution, Systematics and Ecology at the Hebrew University’s Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences.

Read an overview of this new frontier in this story in the New York Times.

Most Commented Posts

{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

Pracheta S. Rana March 21, 2011 at 8:00 am

Hey this is Pracheta from India
Its very useful thing, I am working on flesh flies wanted to know can it be used in approx 0.8 inch flies? and what about its availability?

Leave a Comment

*

Previous post:

Next post: