Connecting animal movement to global biodiversity policy through shared data platforms and software pipelines

Community platforms for animal tracking data store harmonized information on the movements of more than a half-million individuals, documenting behaviors across regions and decades. Software compatible with these platforms offer the possibility of automated monitoring of migration and reproductive phenology and landscape connectivity in near-real time, as well as assessment of spatiotemporal trends in relation to changing environmental conditions. Already widely used for local and regional decision-making, emerging pipelines offer possibilities to develop policy-relevant data products to support multilateral environmental agreements. We will present three examples of such pipelines integrated with Movebank, a global platform for animal-borne sensor data. First, ECODATA offers a suite of apps for manipulating large environmental datasets and linking them to species occurrence data, including through custom animations of wildlife movements. These apps make complex datasets and expert interpretation more accessible to decisionmakers. Second, MoveApps is a no-code platform for adaptable, sharable workflows that can be scheduled to run and deliver output at desired intervals. These workflows support responsive wildlife management and efficient reporting within and across institutions. We will demonstrate the use of these software pipelines to study caribou populations through responsive monitoring of calving biology across herds and jurisdictions. Third, the R package movepub translates data from Movebank to Darwin Core archives for publication on OBIS and GBIF. Currently under development, a GBIF-hosted portal for wildlife tracking data will support cross-platform data integration and make movement data more widely accessible to biodiversity researchers and policymakers. We will show initial results of tracking data published in comparable Darwin Core formats from Movebank and the Ocean Tracking Network. Each of these software pipelines is open for use and further development, including linking to other tracking databases and species occurrence data. To make these pipelines relevant to multinational policy frameworks, we encourage collaboration to understand design requirements to integrate animal tracking data within biodiversity metrics and indicators.