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

这个CNIC项目将允许加州大学圣巴巴拉分校（UCSB）的PI Douglas McCauley通过与坦桑尼亚莫罗戈罗Sokoine农业大学（SUA）的研究人员以及UCSB不同部门的互补研究团队的合作研究努力，开发一个对他来说全新的研究领域。该项目的目标是评估和适应新的，非常高分辨率的卫星数据和计算分析工具，以直接研究大型脊椎动物的自组织。该项目的关键智力价值在于进行概念验证，证明高分辨率卫星数据可用于了解大型脊椎动物自组织几何的规模、范围和参数。这一努力可能会对评估脊椎动物自组织的规模和范围产生变革性影响。动物的自组织几何形状，即形成动物聚集几何形状的集体行为，迄今主要集中在小型脊椎动物（如小鱼）上，卫星数据尚未被用作数据源。通过探索一种新的和明显不同的动物，该项目可能对理解自然界的群体行为和模式形成有重要贡献。这项CNIC提案的目标是为大塞伦盖蒂生态系统的小型试点研究确定必要的亚米全色和多光谱卫星数据，对卫星数据进行实地验证，并验证计算机辅助分析工具，这些工具将在该试点工作中用于评估迁徙角马群的自组织几何形状。这些技术可能有助于研究群体结构和迁徙行为是如何被环境变化改变的。更重要的是，通过比较大型脊椎动物和小型聚集生物群体的自组织研究得出的结论，将有可能更好地理解控制动物自组织的一般原理。这项研究还可能产生工具和信息，有助于管理世界各地正在发生重大变化的生态系统中的大型脊椎动物。

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.