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.
How to cite: Davidson, S. C., Bohrer, G., Desmet, P., Scharf, A. K., Pye, J. D., Wikelski, M., and Kays, R.: Connecting animal movement to global biodiversity policy through shared data platforms and software pipelines, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-792, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-792, 2026.
Behavior is the key mechanism through which animals interact with their environment and respond to environmental change. Movement is a fundamental aspect of animal behavior, operating across multiple scales - from fine-scale local movements to long-distance migrations. Thereby, movement underpins key ecological processes of importance for (meta-)community dynamics and ecosystem functioning, such as seed dispersal, nutrient transfer, disease dynamics, and trophic interactions. Animal movement provides “mobile links” between habitats and therefore plays an integral role for ecosystem function and biodiversity. Evidence for human impacts on animal movement behavior is abundant but is currently not well integrated into policy assessments, despite its central role for biodiversity. Over the past decade, several community efforts have emerged to archive animal movement data. Yet, raw movement data are difficult to interpret and to compare for conservation practitioners and policymakers. In addition, only a fraction of archived data are currently openly accessible. We here introduce a new database – MoveTraits – that extracts a suite of standardized and comparable measures of animal movement behavior from data stored in community repositories. MoveTraits currently provides five simple but widely used traits – from displacement distance to range size – at time scales varying from hourly to annually. Movement traits are annotated with individual level metadata and shared as within-individual repeated measures, as well as individual- and species-level summaries. MoveTraits currently encompasses movement traits for 52 mammal and 97 bird species. We envision that MoveTraits will grow alongside repositories and facilitate access to informative animal movement behaviors derived from movement data, while restricting access to the original data when necessary. Movement traits have potential to improve trait-based global change predictions and contribute to global biodiversity assessments as Essential Biodiversity Variables. By making animal movement data more accessible and interpretable, this database could bridge the gap between movement ecology and biodiversity policy, facilitating evidence-based conservation.
How to cite: Hertel, A., Beumer, L., Davidson, S., and Mueller, T.: MoveTraits – A cross-taxonomic database for standardized movement metrics, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-386, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-386, 2026.
Acoustic telemetry is an increasingly common method for obtaining information on animal movement in aquatic environments and has great potential for supporting biodiversity monitoring frameworks. Acoustic telemetry systems involve transmitters that are attached to or are implanted in animals and receivers (hydrophones) that listen for and decode transmitted signals. The approach is particularly valuable for the many aquatic species that rarely or never spend time at the surface, where they can be tracked using satellite telemetry, or that are too small to carry satellite tags. Regional networks of acoustic telemetry researchers along coastlines and in rivers and estuaries have emerged to coordinate exchange of data and allow for tagged animals to be tracked from local to regional and continental scales. For example, the Atlantic Cooperative Telemetry Network (ACT) brings together >186 researchers from Maine to North Carolina, United States of America, who use acoustic telemetry as a key tool to study movements of >75 species. With >1,030 actively deployed receiver stations in the ACT Network and many more in neighboring networks, tagged animals can be tracked throughout the Atlantic coast of North America. Goals of individual studies conducted by network researchers are diverse, from documenting migration behaviors to understanding connectivity and phenology. ACT Network data are already used in a range of management and conservation applications including fisheries stock assessment, spatial management and planning, protected species monitoring and avoidance, beach safety programs, and fish passage assessment. However, there remains a critical need to develop standardized workflows to aggregate and convert movement data derived from acoustic telemetry into Essential Biodiversity Variables. Additional effort is needed to develop metrics that integrate acoustic telemetry data with other types of movement data. Nevertheless, the community of acoustic telemetry users has made substantial progress on data standardization and development of pipelines that can support the integration of acoustic telemetry data into EBVs.
How to cite: Ogburn, M.: Mobilizing Acoustic Telemetry Data to Inform Biodiversity Conservation, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-839, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-839, 2026.
Acoustic tracking has become an essential tool for studying the spatial ecology of aquatic animals, playing a crucial role in informing management and conservation efforts (Crossin et al. 2017; Hussey et al. 2015; Alós et al. 2022). Over the past two decades, several large-scale tracking networks have been established worldwide, fostering collaboration among researchers and upscaling the deployment of wide-ranging monitoring arrays on marine and freshwater environments. These networks provide key information to investigate key aspects of the population dynamics and behaviour of transnational aquatic species in relation to their environment to feed policies and directives at multiple scales.
The European Tracking Network was launched in 2015 to unite the aquatic animal tracking community in Europe with the mission to track aquatic animal to better understand, protect and manage them. It is a timely initiative that fits withing the UN Ocean Decade and the EU Mission Ocean, which aims to restore our Ocean and Waters and provides significant contributions to several EU directives. In this decade, ETN has grown from an initiative of 20 scientists to become a sustainable network of over 620 researchers representing almost 170 institutions, with a central data system and research infrastructure across Europe including four acoustic telemetry arrays implemented at key straits in Europe; growing collaborative research on a multitude of species and environments; and substantial capacity building.
ETN has five main principles that connect the members and allow them to independently implement specific actions on local-to-regional scales that serve the overall objectives of the network and strengthen the grassroots collaboration, ensuring a sustainable, flexible, compatible, and impactful network. In this talk we will showcase the benefits of large-scale aquatic telemetry initiatives by highlighting some case studies on each of the ETN principles and we will explore the growing potential for ETN to inform biodiversity monitoring and decision-making bodies using relevant metrics.
How to cite: Reubens, J., Aarestrup, K., Abecasis, D., Afonso, P., Alos, J., Birnie-Gauvin, K., Lennox, R., McGill, R., Orrell, D., Villegas-Rios, D., Van der Knaap, I., and Meneses Moreno, C.: The European Tracking Network: one decade of united efforts to advance aquatic conservation in Europe, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-248, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-248, 2026.
Digital Twins (DTs) are virtual representations of real-world physical objects, products, systems, or processes, and can be used for simulations and monitoring for decision support or research. DTs are rapidly gaining momentum by offering a powerful framework to assess the state of natural systems in the past, present, and future. In the marine domain, Digital Twins of the Ocean (DTOs) can be used to monitor changes in marine ecosystems, evaluate the impacts of climate change, and support sustainable use and long-term management. However, most existing DTOs remain heavily focused on oceanographic and physical components and have not yet fully integrated animal-movement data.
Within the European Digital Twin Ocean (EDITO), launched by the European Commission, ocean knowledge is made readily available to everyone. EDITO integrates data from satellites, sensors, computer models, and personal device, including all EMODnet (European Marine Observations and Data Network) and Copernicus Marine data, among other sources. Since November 2025, aquatic animal tracking data from the European Tracking Network (ETN) is incorporated.
The ETN database host tracking data of a wide variety of aquatic animals - such as teleost fish, elasmobranchs and molluscs - with a focus on acoustic telemetry and data storage tags. These data contribute to studies on movement ecology, species distribution modelling, wildlife management and conservation. By contributing its tracking data to EDITO, ETN strengthens its commitment to open, interoperable, and accessible data.
Securing the continuous update of data to the EDITO requires the establishment of reliable pipelines between data sources and the EDITO Data Lakes. To achieve this, ETN has developed pipelines that deliver down-sampled data in Darwin Core format via EMODnet, and full-resolution data in Parquet format via SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog (STAC) standard. The harmonized ETN data streams ensure that researchers, managers, and developers can readily access animal-movement information for modelling, forecasting, and visualization within the EDITO platform.
In this presentation, we outline our best practices for integrating bio-logging and tracking data into Digital Twin initiatives, highlighting lessons learned and presenting how these data streams can enhance evidence-based decision-making in marine management and policy.
How to cite: Meneses Moreno, C., Desmet, P., Moreel, R., Fooks, S., Vermaere, S., and Reubens, J.: Bringing movement data to policymakers: incorporating tracking data into the EU’s Data Lake. , World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-590, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-590, 2026.
Analyzing animal movement data typically involves modeling how movement decisions relate to environmental conditions, for example by fitting step-selection functions using conditional logistic regression. An unresolved question is how well these models forecast future movement beyond the data on which they are trained. This issue is fundamental for understanding movement across spatial and temporal scales and is also highly relevant for conservation planning, reserve design, and mitigation of human–wildlife conflict. Recent work suggests that fitted step-selection functions can be used to forecast multi-scale movement through simulation, but empirical evaluation of these approaches remains limited. Further, to date there are no established metrics or evaluation procedures for evaluating the forecasting ability of animal movement models at multiple scales.
To address these limitations, we introduce a new large-scale benchmark for evaluating the forecasting performance of animal movement models. The benchmark integrates three core components. First, it includes a large, curated collection of public movement datasets spanning diverse taxa, geographic regions, spatial and temporal resolutions, and movement syndromes. Second, each dataset is paired with environmental covariates that are broadly predictive across taxa and structured as geospatial rasters to support simulation from fitted models. Third, the benchmark provides a comprehensive suite of metrics for quantifying forecasting accuracy and uncertainty across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Together, these elements enable standardized, reproducible, and comparative assessment of movement forecasting algorithms.
Using this benchmark, we present empirical results across a range of traditional step-selection approaches as well as emerging machine-learning-based algorithms for movement forecasting. Performance is evaluated consistently across species, regions, and scales, allowing direct comparison of methods that have previously been assessed in isolation. The results highlight both the strengths and the limitations of current modeling strategies and reveal substantial variation in predictive skill across contexts. By providing shared data, covariates, and evaluation tools, the benchmark establishes a foundation for more rigorous and transparent progress in movement forecasting.
How to cite: Kay, J. and Beery, S.: A Predictive Benchmark for Animal Movement Forecasting, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-875, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-875, 2026.
Movement is essential to life and biodiversity, enabling animals to access resources and avoid risks, underlying species interactions and population dynamics, and facilitating gene flow and various ecosystem services. As such, while movement is a recognized Essential Biodiversity Variable in the class of species’ traits, it also scales up from individual responses to interactions and ecosystem functions. Yet, among the current biodiversity indicators, which provide standardized methods for monitoring biodiversity change under anthropogenic impacts, only one integrates movement data (the Protected Area Isolation Index). Here, we evaluate animal movement metrics for their potential as informative biodiversity indicators. To do so, we assess whether fifteen common movement metrics - standardized calculations of movement traits and movement model parameters - have a generalizable response to human disturbance as measured by the Human Footprint Index. Our analysis uses data from ungulates across the globe: White-bearded wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus), all four giraffe species (Giraffa spp.), red deer (Cervus elaphus), mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), Mongolian gazelle (Procapra gutturosa), and guanaco (Lama guanicoe). Of the tested metrics, individuals responded most consistently to increases in human disturbance via a shift in diurnality, a measure of the daily timing of animal movement. All species became more nocturnal in more disturbed landscapes. We therefore suggest that diurnality is a promising candidate for development into a movement-informed biodiversity indicator. Using tracking data from red deer populations monitored for 8-18 years, we then showcase how diurnality can be used to monitor ecological change over time. In particular, we demonstrate that changes in diurnality can capture the effects of management strategies or conservation interventions, a prerequisite for a biodiversity indicator. Lastly, we discuss practical considerations for implementing a movement-based biodiversity indicator like diurnality, highlighting how animal movement offers a powerful, underutilized opportunity to detect the impacts of human disturbance and to inform strategies for mitigating biodiversity loss.
How to cite: Uiterwaal, S. and the Move BON Movement Metrics Team: Tracking change: Integrating animal movement into biodiversity indicators, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-473, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-473, 2026.
Roads cover a significant portion of the Earth’s land surface, fragmenting landscapes and intersecting many key biodiversity areas. While pivotal for human mobility, roads restrict mammal movement, potentially affecting their fitness and abundance. Given the impact and predicted expansion of roads, it is important to understand how mammals respond to roads.
While some studies have investigated species’ responses to roads, they have primarily focused on a small selection of species or locations, limiting our general understanding of road impacts. To address this gap, we used tracking data of over 6000 individuals across 64 mammal species (ranging from 1.5 kg to 4500 kg) on all continents to quantify road avoidance and crossing probability. Due to the global scope of the study, we defined these metrics in such a way that they are easy to understand, fast to calculate and scalable, while being good indicators of road-related behaviour.
We explored two ways to use these crossing and avoidance metrics to understand road impacts on mammal behaviour. We first compared them to road-crossing and avoidance rates from randomly generated tracks, to gain insight into whether roads are altering animal movement. Secondly, we examined how these behaviours relate to species traits, road characteristics and environmental factors. Our initial analyses suggest that road crossing probabilities across all species range from 1 % (highways) to 5% (smaller roads). We also found that crossing rates are mainly related to road type, road density, species’ body mass and canopy cover. Besides differences between species, there is also considerable individual variation (18% of explained variance).
Based on our findings, road crossing and road avoidance probabilities are potential metrics to link movement ecology to biodiversity monitoring. By identifying general patterns and predictors of road impacts across species and landscapes, our research contributes to a more systematic understanding of mammal-road interactions and supports the development of strategies to reduce ecological disruption from infrastructure.
How to cite: Oosterhoff, H., Chatterjee, N., Xu, W., Dejid, N., Mueller, T., Schipper, A., Huijbregts, M., Hilbers, J., and Tucker, M.: Quantifying terrestrial mammal responses to roads, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-745, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-745, 2026.
Animal movement provides high-resolution insights into how species respond to human disturbances. However, such temporal dynamics remain largely absent from the current biodiversity monitoring framework. We present a working pipeline in which we operationalize a movement trait, maximum displacement, as a standardized metric for biodiversity monitoring. We first compiled, cleaned, and harmonized animal movement tracking data from 8,379 individuals representing 66 terrestrial mammal species across 62 countries. Then, we quantified 1-day and 10-day displacements at the individual level (n = 1,611,140 and n = 329,209, respectively). Finally, we examined how individual maximum displacement responds to the composition (i.e., amount, measured by settlement cover) and configuration (i.e., spatial arrangement, measured by settlement porosity) of settled landscapes, where human settlements represent impermeable movement barriers for terrestrial mammals. Our results showed that maximum displacement declined consistently with increasing amounts of settlement in a landscape. In addition, we found that maximum displacement decreased with decreasing settlement porosity across species and scales. At the 10-day scale, for example, displacements decreased by 31.1% with the loss of settlement porosity and by 30.8% with increasing settlement coverage. We also tested these responses under different measurements of the composition of settled landscapes, including the widely used human footprint index and human modification index, and our results remained consistent. Because animal movement is closely associated with ecosystem functions such as seed dispersal and nutrient transfer, the variation in maximum displacement can serve as an indicator for biodiversity changes in response to human pressure. Our results also provided global-scale empirical evidence that landscape configuration is as important as landscape composition in shaping ecological processes such as animal movement. Taken together, our study showed that maximum displacement is a useful movement trait that could be incorporated into indicator frameworks for biodiversity monitoring, especially as animal movement data continue to proliferate with the advancement of tracking technology.
How to cite: Xu, W., Beumer, L., Tucker, M., Behnisch, M., Brenner, A.-K., Chatterjee, N., Dejid, N., Krüger, T., Oosterhoff, H., Rybski, D., Schorcht, M., and Mueller, T. and the additional contributors: Animal displacement as a responsive movement trait for biodiversity monitoring, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-558, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-558, 2026.
The persistence of wildlife populations depends on the extent, quality, and spatial configuration of suitable habitat. Yet as landscapes become increasingly fragmented, the ability of species to move, disperse, and maintain viable populations is being severely compromised. While structural connectivity—based on land cover or habitat adjacency—is widely measured, functional connectivity, the degree to which landscapes actually facilitate animal movement and gene flow, remains poorly quantified at broad scales. Because animal movement directly reflects how individuals interact with the landscape, it provides a powerful but underutilized basis for ecosystem monitoring through population persistence. We developed a movement-based metric that quantifies connectivity as the number of unique grid cells visited by an individual within a time period (e.g., month, season, year). This metric reflects how animals link habitat patches through their movements and space use and provides a standardized, scalable indicator that can be compared across populations, species, and regions. We compiled a telemetry dataset from around ten thousand individuals across 70 terrestrial mammal species, spanning diverse movement strategies, ecological contexts, and life-history traits. We assessed how anthropogenic effects modify functional connectivity across multiple spatial and temporal scales. We found that functional connectivity declined as the human footprint increased. In addition, functional connectivity declined substantially between areas with higher and lower road densities. These losses varied markedly across species, reflecting variation in movement ecology, habitat specialization, and behavioral responses to disturbance. These differences offer key insights into which taxa are most vulnerable to fragmentation and where management interventions may be most effective. Our results demonstrate that animal movement data can be transformed into a policy-relevant, operational indicator of functional connectivity suitable for biodiversity monitoring frameworks. Our results reveal a pervasive, human-driven erosion of ecological connectivity, underscoring the urgency of targeted restoration and management to sustain the functional integrity and ecological processes of wildlife movement worldwide.
How to cite: Chatterjee, N., Xu, W., Dejid, N., Oosterhoff, H., Tucker, M., and Müeller, T. and the Additional contributers: Movement-Derived Connectivity Metrics as indicators for ecosystem monitoring, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-636, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-636, 2026.
As biodiversity loss accelerates, effective conservation depends on understanding the processes that drive population change, including when, where, and why animals die. Yet, traditional biodiversity monitoring rarely captures mortality events or the conditions that precede them, making it difficult to identify specific environmental or human-driven causes. Rapid technological advances in animal biologging have unlocked new ways to reveal the causal pathways leading to mortality, transforming how we understand the mechanisms driving biodiversity loss.
Individual-level data from GPS, accelerometers, and other sensors generate repeated observations across full annual cycles, often without the need for recapture. These data provide high-resolution information on behavior, movement, and environmental exposure, allowing researchers to detect mortality events directly and to identify the pathways that lead to them. This talk outlines the power, potential, and challenges for animal biologging to revolutionize how researchers study animal mortality and highlights case studies demonstrating how biologging can reveal threats that would otherwise remain hidden.
Two examples illustrate the transformative potential of biologging to reveal complex and conservation-relevant causal pathways underpinning population processes. A recent study of Kirtland's Warblers, a species of conservation concern, used emerging tracking techniques to identify carryover effects of winter environmental conditions on mortality during the subsequent migration and breeding season, revealing complex causal pathways by which climate change may be undermining local conservation efforts. Complementing this detailed case study, ongoing work on a global dataset examines individual behavioral responsiveness to human development and links fine-scale movement responses to subsequent survival outcomes across species. This work reveals the extent to which behavioral avoidance or tolerance of human activity mitigates mortality risk, with direct implications for prioritizing conservation interventions.
Finally, we outline how these insights could be scaled to inform global conservation policy. Mortality-based indicators offer a promising approach for converting individual biologging records into early-warning signals that are comparable across species and useful for conservation policy. To advance this work, we are working towards developing an animal-mortality indicator. By revealing when and why animals die, biologging can help target conservation actions more precisely and strengthen global efforts to stem biodiversity loss.
How to cite: Yanco, S., Cohen, J., and Oliver, R.: Biologging can reveal the drivers of animal mortality and support global biodiversity indicators, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-551, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-551, 2026.
There is broad consensus that the long-term preservation of biodiversity requires well-connected habitats. Connectivity within and between habitats has intrinsic importance to animal populations, providing access to refuge, food, and social and reproductive partners, allowing for dispersal, migration, gene flow, and metapopulation dynamics, and supporting population resilience in the face of climate change and other anthropogenic stressors. Given accelerating habitat destruction and fragmentation, preserving and restoring connectivity is a goal of national and global biodiversity targets. Assessment of the physical relationships among habitat patches, or ‘structural connectivity’, based on remote sensing data, has become a common conservation approach. But these predictions may fail to capture the actual ability of organisms to move across landscapes or bodies of water, or ‘functional connectivity’. Here we present the work of Move BON’s (Animal Movement Biodiversity Observation Network) Connectivity Working Group, exploring how animal movement data, which represent observed rather than predicted movements, can be used to measure – and improve – the functional connectivity of habitats across ecological realms. Our contribution is a cross-taxonomic, multi-scale framework that links movement data to functional connectivity metrics and conservation applications, enabling consistent integration of animal movement into spatial planning. Several case studies, covering a range of contexts, are presented to illustrate how animal movement observations can be used to understand connectivity and drive real-world conservation impact. An extensive survey of the relevant literature also allows us to identify movement data deficiencies for estimating functional connectivity, highlighting targets for data collection to significantly advance spatial planning and policy development. Taken together, our work allows us to propose ideas for creating policy-relevant indicators that can be integrated into existing monitoring frameworks and used to assess progress towards achieving biodiversity targets. Given the rapid pace of habitat transformation and degradation, our ability to maintain and restore connectivity across gradients of human activity is critical to the success of biodiversity conservation – we must integrate movement-derived connectivity monitoring into planning for biodiversity conservation, or risk being blind to the ecological needs of animals.
How to cite: Walton, B., Patchett, R., and Rutz, C. and the Move BON Connectivity Working Group: Integrating animal movement data into habitat connectivity planning , World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-390, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-390, 2026.
Every year, migrating ungulates perform some of nature’s most spectacular movements as they travel to and from their seasonal ranges. These migrations support more abundant populations, enhance the biodiversity of ecosystems, and provide food for predators and people. However, in the face of rapid development and habitat fragmentation, large land mammal migrations are increasingly threatened, with migrations often truncated before we have adequate maps to understand their movements. The Global Initiative on Ungulate Migration in 2024 launched the Atlas of Ungulate Migration, an online repository for migration maps and the best available science on migratory populations around the world. This digital archive represents the collaborative efforts of over 80 researchers, wildlife managers, and cartographers, who have partnered to make migration maps publicly available to conservation planners, development banks, and policymakers. In mapping the initial 30+ migrations in the Atlas, we have identified challenges and opportunities in moving from science to effective conservation policy, and in using empirically driven maps to inform landscape connectivity projects. Actions that conserve mapped ungulate migrations are tangible steps that can help realize broader global conservation policies and terrestrial connectivity objectives, such as Targets 1–4 of the KMGBF’s global targets for 2030. Additionally, in mapping the first 22 migrations, we have found that on average, 57% of the corridors (n=22) fall outside of protected areas, representing a significant opportunity to increase conservation measures around this endangered phenomenon. Building an international community of practice also makes possible the first Global Assessment of Ungulate Migrations, which draws on expert opinion to identify unmapped or understudied migratory populations, identify specific threats and conservation opportunities facing migrations across the world, and develop a criteria to rank the most threatened migrations across regions. This assessment will also focus on areas defined as "global migration hotspots" through a novel analysis of IUCN species range data, identifying areas of high conservation value and connectivity needs as well as areas where there are significant knowledge gaps in the conservation and scientific communities' understanding of migratory populations.
How to cite: Mueller, T., Fugate, J., Boyers, M., Cagnacci, F., Chamaille-Jammes, S., Hopcraft, G., Mumme, S., Nunez, T., Peters, W., and Kauffman, M.: Conserving ungulate migration in a changing world: how empirical mapping can guide landscape connectivity and policy , World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-305, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-305, 2026.
Migratory species connect our world both biologically and politically. This spatial and temporal linkage between breeding and non-breeding areas is known as migratory connectivity, which underpins the population persistence of some of the most charismatic species in our oceans. International conventions play a crucial role for migratory species conservation by bringing together nations to respond to transboundary environmental challenges. In recent years, area-based conservation has become a notable focus in several of these multilateral agreements. Targets for protecting 30% of land and sea by 2030 (“30 by 30”) from the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) and the push for new area-based management tools from the recently ratified High Seas Treaty have resulted in significant international momentum to establish marine protected areas (MPAs). It is therefore particularly timely to identify the best ways to effectively leverage this momentum for ensuring marine migratory species and connectivity are incorporated into future protected area design. For migratory species whose population persistence depends on connectivity between key spatially explicit life stages, disconnected protection can mean ineffective protection.
We propose a new framework for evaluating protected area coverage of important migratory life history sites at the network level. Our framework defines three classifications - 1) symmetrically protected - where all connected migratory sites are adequately covered by marine protected areas; 2) asymmetrically protected - where only some sites are met with adequate protection; and 3) none - where no migratory sites are protected. We apply this framework to assess protection coverage of important areas delineated by species specialists and marine managers such as Important Marine Mammal Areas and Key Biodiversity Areas. These datasets are publicly accessible and policy-oriented, and provide a global-level overview to help target research and conservation efforts. This analysis will unveil where migratory marine megafauna are being insufficiently protected, critical knowledge gaps on currently available information on marine connectivity, and opportunities for high-impact transboundary collaboration. This framework will provide governments, corporations, and other stakeholders an early assessment of responsibility for migratory marine species conservation - providing a much-needed tool to better understand how we can better protect our vulnerable ocean wanderers.
How to cite: Liu, A., Boyd, C., Davies, T., Davis, F., Gunn, V., Harrison, A.-L., Hoyt, E., Jabado, R., Johnson, D., MacCarthy, J., Notarbartolo di Sciara, G., Pike, B., Plumptre, A., Sullivan-Stack, J., Szopa-Comley, A., Pattinson, D., Bentley, L., and Dunn, D.: State of Protection for Migratory Marine Connectivity, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-129, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-129, 2026.
Understanding and managing the spatial distribution, movements, and human associations of giraffe (Giraffa spp.) is critical for their long-term conservation across Africa. The Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF) and its partners have developed and implemented innovative approaches to track, monitor, and report on giraffe ecology and management across multiple spatial scales—from individual properties to continent-wide landscapes.
Over the past two decades, GCF has compiled one of the most comprehensive datasets on giraffe population trends, distributions, movements, and genetics. These data underpin evidence-based conservation and management decisions across Africa and contribute directly to international policy frameworks, including the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS).
A central focus of GCF’s work is translating ecological and movement data into actionable conservation insights and policy guidance at local, national, regional, and international levels. This includes trait-based analysis of movement across Africa to identify drivers of movement behaviour, and quantifying functional connectivity within key transboundary landscapes such as Southern Kenya - Northern Tanzania (SOKNOT) and Kavango Zambezi.
Through scalable workflows for data collection, processing, and dissemination, GCF provides a model for how large, complex biodiversity datasets can inform adaptive management and policy processes. Yet, despite their value, large organizational datasets—such as those on species numbers, movements, and genetics—remain underutilized in national and international environmental monitoring and reporting processes, including National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAPs). Giraffe exemplifies how such datasets can be effectively mobilized and integrated across scales through collaborative, transparent, and interoperable data systems.
Emerging initiatives such as the Biodiversity Observation Network for Animal Movement (MoveBON) present new opportunities to enhance data accessibility and coordination across institutions and governance levels. Leveraging these frameworks can substantially strengthen the inclusion of movement ecology in biodiversity monitoring and decision-making.
GCF’s vision is to promote the systematic integration of large-scale conservation and movement data into global biodiversity observation, monitoring, and reporting systems—thereby improving conservation outcomes for giraffe and other wide-ranging species across Africa and beyond.
How to cite: Fennessy, J., Brown, M., Fennessy, S., Muneza, A., and Marneweck, C.: Effectively integrating conservation and movement data into national and international planning: a case study of giraffe across Africa, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-270, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-270, 2026.
Biodiversity affords resilience to populations, species, and ecosystems in the face of environmental disturbances. As the Earth’s climate continues to change rapidly, it is imperative that we understand how biodiversity is affected. In the eastern United States, a natural break in tropical and temperate climates occurs in the Mid-Atlantic Bight due to the Gulf Stream Current, which carries warm waters along the eastern Continental Shelf of the United States from the Gulf of Mexico. However, the Gulf Stream is shifting towards the coast, and the surface is warming, which will likely cause this climate delineation, and subsequently animal distributions, to shift. To establish a baseline of biodiversity in this region, we deployed 9 stations longitudinally from the coast that all monitor for animals that are tagged with acoustic transmitters and 6 of which monitor for cetacean vocalizations. In addition, we collect environmental DNA at these stations on a quarterly basis and utilize high frequency radar, gliders, oceanographic models, and remote sensing to pair environmental variables to biological observations. Through the integration of these disparate data streams, we model migration phenology of multiple species, determine biodiversity hot spots, and uncover longitudinal variation in migratory pathways, thereby increasing our understanding of patterns and changes in biodiversity on multiple temporal and spatial scales. We will make these data and modeling results available on the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network Portal, Mid-Atlantic Regional Association Coastal Ocean Observing System Oceansmap, Atlantic Cooperative Telemetry Network, Ocean Biodiversity Information System, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Centers for Environmental Information. We are developing education materials that will be distributed through the Smithsonian Institution’s Ocean Portal. Consistent monitoring in key regions like the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Bight using these diverse collection methods and public endpoints enables managers to minimize the impacts of climate change on biodiversity and build resilience, manage wild species sustainability, enhance biodiversity and sustainability in fisheries, share benefits from genetic resources and digital sequence information, integrate biodiversity in decision-making, and ensure that data and knowledge are available and accessible to guide biodiversity action, all of which are targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
How to cite: Bowers, B., Ogburn, M., Bailey, H., Tribble, C., Carlisle, A., Knee, K., Meyer, C., Roarty, H., Secor, D., O'Brien, M. H. P., Thielen, P., and Kuska, G.: Integrating multiple data streams to monitor biodiversity in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Bight, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-70, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-70, 2026.
Estuaries provide vital social, cultural, economic, and environmental services to human societies worldwide, including 19 million coastal Australians, but rank among the most heavily used and threatened ecosystems. Australian coastal estuaries support around 50 shorebird species, many of which have declined sharply in recent decades due to habitat loss, disturbance, and introduced predators. Conserving these species depends on protecting and restoring habitats throughout their range, including estuaries, yet knowledge gaps persist regarding shorebird spatial ecology at night and during low tides—periods critical for foraging but involving heightened vulnerability to predation. High-tide roosting sites are well documented through daytime surveys, but habitats used at night and low tides, when shorebirds disperse to forage, remain poorly understood. These gaps limit effective adaptive land management and evidence-based conservation. Our study addressed this by deploying an array of eight Motus automated telemetry stations to quantify fine-scale habitat use within the Hunter Estuary, including a Ramsar-listed wetland of international importance. The array combines omnidirectional and directional antennas, which listen 24/7 for pulses of individually encoded, high temporal resolution (~15s pulse interval) Lotek nanotags attached to shorebirds. Tidal and circadian cycles were superimposed on detection periods, with variations in signal strength examined to distinguish resting from activity. This comparative dataset reveals for the first time species-specific patterns of estuarine use at night and during low tide, providing new knowledge of habitat preferences and movement ecology. It establishes a foundation for research into habitat selection drivers, such as food resources and predation risks by invasive predators. The study illustrates how patterns of movement revealed by automated telemetry can be combined with other ecological data (GPS, eDNA, camera trapping, stable isotopes) to unravel drivers of shorebird movements and determine whether some habitats not used by shorebirds nevertheless contribute to their conservation. Hence, comprehensive estuary-level shorebird movement data from a Motus array supports evidence-based land management decisions and adaptive management at the spatial scale where conservation action is typically implemented.
How to cite: Marini, M., Gapes, C., Williams, L., Taylor, M., Little, J., Little, G., Kyte, R., Garnett, D., Poole, S., Dupré, S., Stat, M., Hayward, M. W., Tourenq, C., Raoult, V., Gaston, T. F., and Griffin, A. S.: Motus automated telemetry uncovers migratory shorebirds habitat selection, supporting adaptive land management, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-603, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-603, 2026.
Movement is a fundamental aspect of ecology, facilitating species interactions, transport of energy, and ultimately ecosystem function. Central place foragers such as seabirds can be highly mobile and thus flexible to variable foraging conditions, but also constrained by the needs to return, such as to feed young. Determining how flexibility in movements allows animals to withstand variations in foraging conditions is important for predicting resilience to climate change and other stressors. Such linkages would also quantify how animal movement relates to biodiversity. Our study explores the role of foraging movement in prey capture and reproductive success in a central place foraging seabird, the common tern (Sterna hirundo), in a breeding colony in the Northwestern Atlantic. Over four years (2021-2024), we collected movement (GPS telemetry), prey provisioning to chicks, and reproductive success data from common terns nesting on a colony in the Gulf of Maine (GOM). In years of high preferred prey (herrings, hakes, and sand lance) abundance and high chick survival, common terns largely foraged close to the colony at productive nearby river mouths. Conversely, in years of low preferred prey abundance and low chick survival on the colony, common terns increased foraging trip durations by up to 87% and expanded foraging ranges by up to 52%. Range expansions were driven by increased use of waters in the Stellwagen Bank region, which is encompassed within the GOM’s only national marine sanctuary and in which sand lance are abundant. Our results suggest that common tern foraging movements are flexible in response to forage fish availability, but that increased foraging movement effort in low-productivity years may be insufficient to maintain survival of chicks. This case study demonstrates how movement data can be indicative of not only the animal’s success, but also of local ecosystem productivity and biodiversity. Scaling such observations across colonies would facilitate monitoring of biodiversity and forage fish distribution and abundance, impacting conservation and fisheries management.
How to cite: Furey, N., Caldwell, A., and Craig, E.: Integrating telemetry with metrics of marine biodiversity reveals linkages between movements, feeding, and reproductive success in a seabird, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-741, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-741, 2026.
Urban expansion is reshaping ecosystems worldwide, yet a surprising diversity of wildlife persists in cities, offering unique opportunities, but also urgent challenges, for biodiversity monitoring. Among raptors, urban tolerance is typically restricted to small-bodied, generalist species, making the African crowned eagle (Stephanoaetus coronatus) – a large, powerful forest specialist – a notable exception. Despite being considered threatened in South Africa and commonly persecuted, crowned eagles reach higher densities within the Durban Metropolitan Open Space System (DMOSS) than in surrounding natural habitats. Durban may function as an urban refuge, offering abundant non-native eucalyptus trees for nesting and an assemblage of city-dwelling prey, including rock hyraxes, hadeda ibises, and vervet monkeys. Yet the mechanisms by which these apex predators persist in such a fragmented landscape – and the implications for biodiversity monitoring – remain poorly understood.
Here, we combined high-resolution GPS and triaxial accelerometry to quantify habitat selection and energy expenditure across urban areas. Using Resource Selection Functions and Overall Dynamic Body Acceleration as a proxy for energy expenditure, we show that crowned eagles expend substantially more energy in transformed habitats – particularly near DMOSS boundaries and roads – while forest patches serve as energetic refuges. Elevated energy expenditure may signal hunting activity or behavioural responses to human disturbance. Their movement trajectories capture fine-scale ecosystem processes that are otherwise not represented in conventional biodiversity assessments.
Our ongoing work extends this framework by tracking breeding pairs to map fine-scale hunting excursions, quantify sex-specific prey capture linked to pronounced sexual size dimorphism, and examine behavioural complementarity during offspring provisioning. These metrics are directly interpretable as movement traits with biodiversity relevance, informing: (1) functional connectivity within urban green networks; (2) predator–prey interactions and the persistence of urban trophic structures; and (3) the capacity of urban refugia to support apex predators.
By integrating movement-derived indicators into biodiversity monitoring workflows, this case study demonstrates how high-resolution biologging can reveal hidden ecological dynamics in cities and support evidence-based decision-making for urban biodiversity conservation at local and regional scales.
How to cite: Sumasgutner, P., Jain, V., Howard, L., Cunningham, S., and Sumasgutner, S. C.: Urban refuge or ecological trap? Energy expenditure and space use of African crowned eagles in Durban, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-937, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-937, 2026.
Monitoring animal movement at meaningful spatial and temporal scales remains a major bottleneck for biodiversity assessment. Many policy frameworks rely on sparse counts, opportunistic observations, or delayed reporting pipelines that struggle to capture rapid ecological change. We present an emerging approach that uses a distributed network of high-resolution vertical-looking radars to measure the movement of airborne animals in near real time. These sensors record continuous trajectories and motion traits of birds, bats, and insects with no tagging effort, providing an integrated view of aerial biodiversity across taxa.
Even a modest number of radar stations can resolve large-scale spatiotemporal patterns. By combining radar-derived movement traits with environmental and landscape data, we can quantify migration fronts, seasonal traffic rates, diel movement strategies, and longer-term behavioural shifts. Preliminary analyses show strong correlations in movement intensity between radar sites separated by tens to hundreds of kilometres, indicating that the system captures coherent regional-scale dynamics rather than isolated local signals. This opens the door to scalable, transboundary indicators of aerial vertebrate and invertebrate activity.
The potential applications are broad. Radar-based movement metrics support early warning systems for agricultural pests or declining pollinators, inform bat and bird collision risk assessments at wind energy facilities, contribute data about bird strike risks for aviation, provide near real-time indicators relevant to zoonotic disease surveillance, and enable long-term tracking of phenological and distributional change under climate pressure. Because the data stream is continuous and harmonised across sites, it can complement existing biodiversity reporting frameworks by supplying movement traits that are consistent, comparable, and policy-relevant.
We show how vertically oriented radar measurements can be distilled into indicators such as traffic rates, diel timing metrics, flight height distributions, and migration intensity indices. These reveal coherent spatial and temporal structure across sites and demonstrate how a radar network resolves regional patterns in aerial activity with minimal configuration. By capturing these dynamics at scale and in near real time, radar networks provide a robust basis for tracking shifts in aerial biodiversity and informing conservation decisions that depend on timely movement information.
How to cite: Nüesch, J., Liechti, F., and Kleger, D.: The Radar Network for Biodiversity Monitoring: Movement-Trait Indicators from Airborne Wildlife, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-594, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-594, 2026.
To reduce rates of biodiversity loss, we must urgently learn how best to share space with wildlife in the world’s unprotected areas. Spatial planning for sustainable coexistence requires an in-depth understanding of the needs of both people and wildlife. Cutting-edge wildlife ‘wearables’ can be used to generate detailed information on the movements and behaviour of wild animals, revealing where they struggle to cope with habitat loss, land modification, or human disturbance. In partnership with the National Geographic Society, we are launching an initiative that will build a network of field teams to collaboratively track a large number of bird and mammal species across gradients of urbanisation, agricultural expansion and human disturbance worldwide, producing a holistic understanding of animal behaviour in human-modified landscapes. The collective expertise and change-making potential of the field teams lies at the heart of our vision. Every field team will conduct a self-contained study, producing valuable findings of taxon- and location-specific relevance. As the network expands, pooling of data across species and contexts will unlock opportunities to address otherwise intractable objectives. For example, standardised animal-tracking data will be leveraged to develop improved spatial planning tools, such as digital twins, that can more accurately measure the functional connectivity of habitats, forecast the impacts of different land-use scenarios, or simulate the effectiveness of specific management interventions. As an innovative aspect of our design, field teams will be supported in their efforts to collaborate with local communities, policy makers and other interested and affected groups, to drive on-the-ground change. This approach addresses head-on the typical disconnect between high-level decision making at the science–policy–management nexus and the needs, opportunities and obstacles encountered at local scales. By combining the powers of inclusive community building, cutting-edge tracking technology, dynamic spatial planning tools, local empowerment, public engagement, education, and storytelling, we aim to identify innovative pathways towards sustainable human–wildlife coexistence, generating lasting benefits for both people and wildlife.
How to cite: Patchett, R., Walton, B., and Rutz, C.: Forging pathways towards sustainable human–wildlife coexistence: a coordinated global animal-tracking initiative, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-669, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-669, 2026.
Although wildlife capture and handling are central to research and management programmes, they can raise various ethical and regulatory challenges. Ensuring ethical conduct is essential not only for scientific rigour, but also for the social acceptability of field projects. However, formal oversight systems (e.g., IACUCs), developed for laboratory animal research, often struggle to address the realities of field ecology, where conditions are unpredictable and decisions are highly context-dependent (Sikes & Paul, 2013). Therefore, practitioners must navigate complex ethical tensions – such as balancing animal welfare with research objectives or ecological outcomes, managing risks to staff and addressing local communities’ concern – with limited structured guidance (Minteer & Collins, 2005).
To support ethical decision-making in wildlife capture and handling, we are developing a customised version of ETHAS (de Mori et al., 2024), a checklist-based ethical self-assessment tool designed to evaluate wildlife conservation practices and procedures. Available globally as a web-based platform, ETHAS enables practitioners to access the checklist, document decisions and reflect on best practices. Moreover, by facilitating reflection to address concerns related to animal welfare, environmental, social and research ethics, ETHAS provides a neutral platform for transparent decision-making and communication among the whole project team.
This framework customisation, developed as pilot phase focusing on terrestrial mammals through a participatory process, is based on semi-structured interviews with practitioners involved in capture and handling across Europe and North America, including field biologists, wildlife veterinarians, managers, and oversight professionals.
This bottom-up approach shaped the design, content, and implementation strategy, ensuring that the checklist is practical, context-sensitive, and applicable to real-world field scenarios. By integrating practitioners' perspectives, the tool is designed to promote ethical reflection at every stage of a project, from design to field implementation. This talk will explore the outcomes of the interviews, focusing on practitioners’ experiences with field procedures, recognised regulatory, logistical, or institutional constraints, and perceived ethical tensions that may arise while planning and conducting fieldwork. It will also discuss how these insights informed the structure and content of the checklist, refined its ethically relevant goals, and identified specific areas where additional guidance is most needed to uphold ethical standards.
How to cite: Indovina, A. R. E., Basile, S., Biasetti, P., Alya, S., Zemanova, M. A., and de Mori, B.: Building an ethical self-assessment checklist for wildlife capture: lessons from practitioner interviews, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-552, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-552, 2026.
