Construction of an Observatory, As a Management Tool Decision, Valorisation and Sustainable Preservation of the Resources of Aromatic and Medicinal Plants

Today, the actors of the aromatic and medicinal plants (MAPs) sector are facing several problems related to the management, exploitation, marketing and valorisation of these resources. The objective of this presentation is to build a MAPs monitoring model based on two very important sources of information: Global Positioning System (GPS) tracks for the plant gatherer Linden (Tilia argentea), and historical inventory data of the year 1988. The results show that the experimental model of the database enables the storage, processing and cross-referencing of historical data with the GPS geographic information provided by gatherers.

Some peculiarities of functional zoning in specially protected natural territories: case study of the Tunkinsky National Park, Russia

As the global ecosystem protection agenda continuous to unfold, the topic of functional zoning of protected areas’ remains the subject of intensive discussions. The paper discusses the essence, specific features, key factors and actions taken to improve the functional zoning of national parks in Russia. On the example of the national park “Tunkinsky” it is shown how the functional zoning has changed since its creation and what factors influenced this process. The paper presents analysis of natural, historical, cultural, socio-economic, tourist-recreational and organizational conditions for functional zone allocation in the Tunkinsky National Park, as well as changes in the composition, naming, and area of the functional zones in the national park. Using the data from geolocation services, such as photos with a given geolocation posted by tourists in social networks, and GPS tracks of tourist routes, the authors prove the validity of changes in the functional zoning of the National Park, with an increase in the recreational zone, providing an optimal combination of nature conservation, tourist and recreational and economic functions was proved.

Decision rules for determining terrestrial movement and the consequences for filtering high-resolution GPS tracks – A case study using the African Lion (Panthera leo)

The combined use of Global Positioning System (GPS) technology and motion sensors within the discipline of movement ecology has increased over recent years. This is particularly the case for instrumented wildlife, with many studies now opting to record parameters at high (infra-second) sampling frequency. However, the detail with which GPS loggers can elucidate fine-scale movement depends on the precision and accuracy of fixes, with accuracy (specifically, location error and fix success rate) being affected by signal reception. We hypothesised that animal behaviour was the main factor affecting fix inaccuracy (particularly for collar-mounted tags sampling at high frequency). In conjunction to this, inherent GPS positional noise (‘jitter’), would be most apparent during GPS fixes for non-moving locations, thereby producing disproportionate error during rest periods. A Movement Verified Filtering (MVF) protocol was constructed to compare GPS-derived speed data to dynamic body acceleration (DBA). This was collected by a simultaneously deployed tri-axial accelerometer, to provide a computationally quick method for identifying genuine travelling movement. This method was tested on 11 free-ranging lions ( Panthera leo ) within the Kgalagadi Transfrontier park in the Kalahari Desert, fitted with collar-mounted GPS units and tri-axial motion sensors (Daily Diary; DD) recording at 1 and 40 Hz, respectively. The findings support the hypothesis and show that distance moved estimates were, on average, overestimated by > 80 % prior to GPS screening. We present the conceptual and mathematical protocols for screening fix inaccuracy within high resolution GPS datasets. We demonstrate the importance that MVF has for avoiding inaccurate and biased estimates of movement and caution the accuracy of findings from previous studies that employed minimal GPS pre-processing . Throughout, we address the applicability of comparing fine-scale indices of GPS- and motion sensor-borne data in tandem to qualify animal behaviour.

“Psyosphere”: A GPS Data-Analysing Tool for the Behavioural Sciences

Positioning technologies, such as GPS are widespread in society but are used only sparingly in behavioural science research, e.g., because processing positioning technology data can be cumbersome. The current work attempts to unlock positioning technology potential for behavioural science studies by developing and testing a research tool to analyse GPS tracks. This tool—psyosphere—is published as open-source software, and aims to extract behaviours from GPSs data that are more germane to behavioural research. Two field experiments were conducted to test application of the research tool. During these experiments, participants played a smuggling game, thereby either smuggling tokens representing illicit material past border guards or not. Results suggested that participants varied widely in variables, such as course and speed variability and distance from team members in response to the presence of border guards. Subsequent analyses showed that some of these GPS-derived behavioural variables could be linked to self-reported mental states, such as fear. Although more work needs to be done, the current study demonstrates that psyosphere may enable researchers to conduct behavioural experiments with positioning technology, outside of a laboratory setting.

Inter-Specific and Intra-Specific Competition of Two Sympatrically Breeding Seabirds, Chinstrap and Gentoo Penguins, at Two Neighboring Colonies

Theory predicts that sympatric predators compete for food under conditions of limited resources. Competition would occur even within the same species, between neighboring populations, because of overlapping foraging habits. Thus, neighboring populations of the same species are hypothesized to face strong competition. To test the hypothesis that intra-specific competition is more intense than inter-specific competition owing to a lack of niche partitioning, we estimated the foraging area and diving depths of two colonial seabird species at two neighboring colonies. Using GPS and time-depth recorders, we tracked foraging space use of sympatric breeding Chinstrap and Gentoo penguins at Ardley Island (AI) and Narębski Point (NP) at King George Island, Antarctica. GPS tracks showed that there was a larger overlap in the foraging areas between the two species than within each species. In dive parameters, Gentoo penguins performed deeper and longer dives than Chinstrap penguins at the same colonies. At the colony level, Gentoo penguins from NP undertook deeper and longer dives than those at AI, whereas Chinstrap penguins did not show such intra-specific differences in dives. Stable isotope analysis of δ13C and δ15N isotopes in blood demonstrated both inter- and intra-specific differences. Both species of penguin at AI exhibited higher δ13C and δ15N values than those at NP, and in both locations, Gentoo penguins had higher δ13C and lower δ15N values than Chinstrap penguins. Isotopic niches showed that there were lower inter-specific overlaps than intra-specific overlaps. This suggests that, despite the low intra-specific spatial overlap, diets of conspecifics from different colonies remained more similar, resulting in the higher isotopic niche overlaps. Collectively, our results support the hypothesis that intra-specific competition is higher than inter-specific competition, leading to spatial segregation of the neighboring populations of the same species.

Facing the needs for clean bicycle data – a bicycle-specific approach of GPS data processing

Background GPS-based cycling data are increasingly available for traffic planning these days. However, the recorded data often contain more information than simply bicycle trips. GPS tracks resulting from tracking while using other modes of transport than bike or long periods at working locations while people are still tracking are only some examples. Thus, collected bicycle GPS data need to be processed adequately to use them for transportation planning. Results The article presents a multi-level approach towards bicycle-specific data processing. The data processing model contains different steps of processing (data filtering, smoothing, trip segmentation, transport mode recognition, driving mode detection) to finally obtain a correct data set that contains bicycle trips, only. The validation reveals a sound accuracy of the model at its’ current state (82–88%).

Decreased cortisol among hikers who preferentially visit and value biodiverse riparian zones

While outdoor recreationists often report increases to their well-being for time spent in nature, the mechanisms through which local ecologies affect human health have been difficult to quantify, and thus to manage. We combine data from pre-post salivary cortisol measures, GPS tracks, visitor photos, and surveys from 88 hikers traversing several types of landscape within peri-urban public lands in southwest Idaho, USA. We find that time in biodiverse riparian areas and areas of perceived aesthetic value correlates with decreases in salivary cortisol and improved well-being for hikers. Wildlife sightings were not associated with changes in salivary cortisol, but were associated with riparian travel and aesthetic preferences, indicating an indirect pathway for ecosystem services. Additionally, wildlife sightings decreased on high-use days, even though hikers did not perceive a negative impact of their recreational activity. These results suggest that cultural and physiological ecosystem services of nature depend on the ecological community of the area. Preferential visitation and high service value of riparian areas by hikers and wildlife alike target shared riparian areas as hot spots for management efforts to promote both ecological and human health within an increasingly urbanizing world.