Understanding the Movement Ecology of Wildlife on the Changing Planet

Dear Colleagues,

Humans share the earth with over 6.5 million terrestrial animal species and about 2.2 million aquatic species. These animals engage in continuous movement day and night, following ancient behavioral programs while adapting to the ever-changing conditions of our planet. In 2008, Ran Nathan introduced the Movement Ecology paradigm amidst an ongoing period of innovation in animal tracking technology. We are currently in a period of rapid discovery that is due, in large part, to novel and widespread use of remote sensing technologies that allow for new insights into animal movements. Among these technologies are biologging tags that can be attached to animals to generate location data and other information; automated audio recording units that can be used to identify and quantify species; radars that can detect airborne animals and provide details about their physical properties and behaviors; and advances in machine vision that can automate monitoring animals with video cameras. Data from these technologies are often interpreted in combination with contextual information about the environment (often including other remote-sensing products) to yield new knowledge across spatial and temporal scales about the status of biological diversity, ecosystem services, and mounting pressures on natural populations.

This Special Issue calls for contributions that use remote sensing tools and/or datasets to monitor and comprehend the movement of wildlife, biologging biodiversity, ecological research, and conservation science. The Special Issue will also promote the use of remote sensing to advance the theory of Movement Ecology, as well as relevant methodologies, and equipment. We invite researchers from across the world and across scientific disciplines to share their research articles, reviews, and case studies that address challenges related to biological diversity and ecosystem services through the use of remote sensing technology. In so doing, we aim to bridge the gap between movement ecology and conservation practices while raising awareness of the achievements and challenges inherent in remote sensing within the biological sciences.

The scope of this Special Issue includes, but is not limited to, the following topics:

• Spatial patterns and mechanisms of animal migration;
• Advancements and applications of movement ecology theories and methodologies;
• Utilizing remote sensing technologies in the study of animal movement;
• Responses of wildlife and human movement behavior to environmental changes;
• Investigating species migration and habitat selection using location tracking technologies;
• Contributions of movement ecology to biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services;
• Multi-scale movement pattern analysis and spatial data mining;
• Animal migration modeling and predictions based on big data;
• Applications of social network analysis in movement ecology;
• Mapping and visualization of movement patterns;
• Location tracking technology;
• Trajectory data mining techniques for extracting valuable insights from movement data;
• Incorporating Internet of Things (IoT) technologies in movement ecology studies;
• Potential contributions of citizen scientists to remote-sensing datasets.

Research articles and review articles, as well as short communications, are invited.

Dr. Kunpeng Yi
Dr. Hengcai Zhang
Dr. Eli S. Bridge
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.