Movement Mondays
Join us for invited seminar talks by world-leading scientists and informal research and technique-oriented talks by CAM members where we discuss our latest and greatest ideas!
Our next speaker:
Dr. Urška Demšar - September 21st
Bridging the gap between human mobility and animal ecology: emergence of data-driven approaches for the study of migratory navigation
As movement data become increasingly accessible, movement analysis has become an integral part of many disciplines, yet there is still a lack of interdisciplinary awareness. Human mobility research relies heavily on data-driven approaches, with machine learning and AI models that attempt to explain decision-making mechanisms in movement behaviour. Movement ecology primarily relies on traditional statistical models, in spite of ecology being at the forefront of collecting and sharing animal movement data. This talk will outline differences between human mobility and movement ecology and then illustrate the benefits of bridging the gap between the two. We will present how a new, data-driven approach can contribute to the study of one of the most persistent mysteries in movement ecology: understanding migratory navigation. We will illustrate this through two case studies on navigation of greater white-fronted geese (Anser albifrons). The first case study uses biased correlated random walks, a traditional ecological approach, to simulate navigation. The second case study applies Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL), a recent AI method used in robotics and autonomous driving, to the same problem. We compare results of the two approaches and outline advantages and disadvantages of each.
