Elements: Spatial Ecology Gateway

Spatial ecology is the study of how landscape characteristics influence the distribution and movement of organisms within their environment. The Spatial Ecology Gateway (SEG) enables researchers, students and wildlife managers to upload biotelemetry data, typically GPS readings, and construct home ranges that allow them to interpret animal space use.

Applications of the SEG can include classroom projects, basic research into problems in wildlife ecology, environmental impact studies and mitigation of adverse outcomes such as habitat fragmentation or increased human-wildlife interaction resulting from new development. The SEG insulates users from the underlying computational details so that they can focus on their science rather than mastering the technology.

Users of the SEG have the option to generate two-dimensional (2D) or, where applicable, three-dimensional (3D) home ranges. Users are also provided with less computationally intensive tools to perform exploratory analyses.

The SEG is built using the HubZero platform, an open-source software platform for building websites that support scientific activities and leverages the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) for more computationally demanding tasks. Data can be pulled directly into the SEG from the online community platform Movebank using their REST API.

The SEG deploys the Brownian Bridge Movement Model (BBMM), Potential Path Volumes (PPV) and Continuous-Time Movement Modeling (ctmm) methods for home range construction. Tools for exploratory analysis of animal trajectories include net squared displacement, movement path tortuosity and relocation sampling rates versus deployment time. Users can apply basic filtering to their data sets to restrict analyses to specified time ranges or particular animals.

The SEG insulates users from having to decide computational details such as choice of resource, number of compute cores or wall clock time. Rather, these decisions are made using logic built into the gateway and based on extensive benchmarking studies.

This award by the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure is jointly supported by the Division of Biological Infrastructure within the NSF Biosciences Directorate, and by the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems within the NSF Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.