Tracking individual animals can reveal the mechanisms of species loss

Abstract

As biodiversity loss continues, targeted conservation interventions are increasingly necessary. Stemming species loss requires mechanistic understanding of the processes governing population dynamics. However, this information is unavailable for most animals because it requires data that are difficult to collect using traditional methods. Advances in animal tracking technology have generated an avalanche of high-resolution observations for a growing list of species around the globe. To date, most research using these data has focused on questions about animal behavior, with less emphasis on population processes. Here, we argue that tracking data are uniquely poised to bring powerful new insights to the urgent, global problem of halting species extinctions by revealing when, where, how, and why populations are changing.