U.S.-Tanzania Planning Visit: Investigating Patterns of Self-organization in Large Vertebrates Using Very High-resolution Satellite Imagery

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This CNIC project will allow the PI, Douglas McCauley of the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) to develop a research area that is new to him via a collaborative research effort with researchers at Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) in Morogoro, Tanzania and a complementary research team in a different department at UCSB. The goal of the project is to evaluate and adapt new, very high-resolution satellite data and computational analysis tools to directly study self-organization of large vertebrates. The key intellectual merit of this project is to perform proof-of-concept demonstrating that high-resolution satellite data can be used to understand the scale, scope and parameters of self-organization geometries in large vertebrates. This effort could have a transformative impact on the scale and scope at which self-organization in vertebrates can be evaluated. Self-organization geometries in animals, that is the collective behaviors that shape the geometry of animal aggregations, have thus far focused primarily on small vertebrates (e.g. minnows) and satellite data has not been utilized as a data source. By exploring a new and significantly different set of animals this project may significantly contribute to the understanding of group behavior and pattern formation in nature. The goal of this CNIC proposal is to identify the necessary sub-meter panchromatic and multispectral satellite data for a small pilot study in the Greater Serengeti Ecosystem, ground truth the satellite data and validate the computer-assisted analysis tools that will be applied, in this pilot effort, to evaluating self-organization geometries of migrating wildebeest herds. These techniques may allow study of how group architecture and migratory behaviors have been altered by environmental change. More significantly, by comparing conclusions drawn from the study of self-organization in large groups of large vertebrates to those generated in groups of smallbodied aggregating organisms, it will be possible to better understand the general principles that control animate self-organization. The research is also likely to result in tools and information that can assist the management of large vertebrates in ecosystems around the world that are undergoing significant change.