Dynamic Models of Animal Movement with Spatial Point Process Interactions

• Activity Number: 247
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 10, 2015 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistics and the Environment
• Author(s): James Russell* and Ephraim Hanks and Murali Haran
• Companies: Penn State and Penn State and Penn State
• Keywords: Movement ; Interactions ; Point Process ; Ecology ; Bayes ; Metropolis-Hastings

Abstract

When analyzing animal movement, it is important to account for interactions between individuals. However, statistical models for incorporating interaction behavior in movement models are limited. We propose an approach that models dependent movement by augmenting a dynamic marginal movement model with a spatial point process interaction function. The model is flexible, as different movement models and interaction functions can be selected according to species behavior. Inference for model parameters is complicated by intractable normalizing constants. We develop a double Metropolis-Hastings algorithm to perform Bayesian inference. We illustrate our approach through the analysis of movement tracks of guppies (Poecilia reticulata).