Advancing movement ecology research by establishing the Motus Wildlife Tracking System in Manitoba

几个世纪以来，人类一直对动物运动着迷，但直到最近，我们才进入了被称为运动生态学研究的“黄金时代”，这是由电子跟踪设备小型化和自动接收器网络发展的重要进展推动的。Motus野生动物跟踪系统（http：//motus.org/）是一个国际协调的自动化无线电遥测网络，在西半球有300多个接收站。它代表了使用无线电信号精确跟踪生物体在时间和空间上的运动的关键技术进步，提供了可用于研究不同陆地和鸟类类群的运动和/或迁移的精细尺度本地（<1米）和广泛的地理（1000公里）时空数据。马尼托巴南部丘吉尔MB地区现有的接收站只有3个，构成了目前网络的一个关键和明显的缺口。 我们正在寻求对在温尼伯地区建立Motus系统6接收器阵列所需设备的支持。购买设备来建立这个系统和单独编码的纳米标签将支持马尼托巴大学生物科学系的Kevin Fraser，James Hare和Colin Garroway项目的创新研究。在短期内（未来5年），我们将使用该设备来测试假设的发展，鸟类迁徙计划（KF），研究空间利用，扩散和源库动态的富兰克林的地松鼠（JH），并测试在何种程度上动物运动预测基因流在东部灰松鼠（CG）。在接下来的五年里，这项研究将成为12名研究生和本科生以及申请人实验室的博士后研究员的培训和论文的重要组成部分。 这些研究活动将使申请人和他们的学员通过各自的研究计划的镜头，为运动生态学的新兴领域做出领先的贡献。一旦建立，该系统可以由任何研究人员使用，在阵列的检测足迹内将编码的纳米标签部署在他们感兴趣的生物体上。因此，我们预计该系统的建立将建立当地相关研究的能力，吸引更多的研究活动和高质量的HQP到该地区的未来。此外，由于我们的接收站将连接到整个Motus网络的中央存储分配系统，我们的系统将从无数的迁移生物中收集有价值的时空数据，这些迁移生物配备了在我们的阵列中通过的编码标签，从而支持加拿大和国际上的研究计划。

Humans have been fascinated by animal movement for centuries, but it is only recently that we have entered what has been described as a ‘golden age’ of movement ecology research, fueled by important advances in the miniaturization of electronic tracking devices and the development of automated receiver networks. The Motus Wildlife Tracking System (http://motus.org/) is an internationally coordinated, automated, radio-telemetry network with more than 300 receiver stations spread across the Western Hemisphere. It represents a critical technological advance in the use of radio-signals to precisely track organismal movement in time and space, providing both fine-scale local (<1m) and broad geographical (1000s of km) spatio-temporal data that can be used to study the movement and/or migration of diverse terrestrial and avian taxa. With only 3 existing receiver stations in the area of Churchill MB, southern Manitoba constitutes a critical and conspicuous gap in the current network. We are seeking support for the equipment needed to establish a 6-receiver array of the Motus system in the Winnipeg region. The purchase of equipment to establish this system and individually-coded nano-tags would support innovative research in the programs of Kevin Fraser, James Hare, and Colin Garroway in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Manitoba. In the short-term (next 5 years), we would use this equipment to test hypotheses for the development of avian migratory programs (KF), to study space-use, dispersal and source-sink dynamics of Franklin’s ground squirrels (JH), and to test the extent to which animal movement predicts gene flow in eastern grey squirrels (CG). Over the next five years, this research will be an important part of the training and theses of 12 graduate and undergraduate students and a postdoctoral researcher in the labs of the applicants. These research activities will enable the applicants and their trainees to make leading-edge contributions to the burgeoning field of movement ecology, through the lenses of their respective research programs. Once established, this system could be used by any researcher deploying coded nano-tags on their organism of interest within the detection footprint of the array. We therefore anticipate that the establishment of this system would build local capacity for related research, attracting further research activities and high quality HQP to the region well into the future. Further, because our receiver stations will be connected to the central repository-distribution system of the full Motus network, our system will collect valuable spatio-temporal data from innumerable migratory organisms outfitted with coded tags that pass within our array, thus supporting research programs from across Canada and internationally.