[Startsidan]

Animal movements - from free ranging to restricted indoor environments, 3 credits

The aim of this course is to learn method approaches to analyse movement data on animals in natural, semi-natural or indoor environments. The focus will be on using existing R packages for movement analysis evaluating, how animals are affected by their environments and what drives their behavioural decisions. The course will also deal with animal social interactions both from the individual perspective, ie how agonistic behaviour in a group affect individual performance, and from a group interaction perspective i.e. how group members are dependent on each other in their behavioural decisions. We will exemplify these behaviours and decisions to three different systems 1) free-ranging reindeer use of natural pastures, 2) horses/cows in semi-natural pastures, and 3) cows in an indoor environment. GPS-data, local locational data systems (e.g., ultra-wideband) will be used during the course.

On completion of the course, the student should be able to
1) describe and explain how to analyse and quantify animal movement data from free-ranging (wild) animals, semi-natural pastures, and indoor environments
2) use relevant R-packages (amt- move- etc..) for analysis of animal movement data
3) reason around group dynamics in herd living animals
4) interpret results from social network analysis

Extent:
3 credits

Prerequisites
Admitted to a postgraduate program in animal science, biology, veterinary medicine or related subjects, and knowledge in R (at least 3 weeks of course work in R and experience of using R in their own research project) and basic knowledge in GIS and experience of using software such as ArcGIS, QGIS or similar.

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