Animal behaviour is being altered by the increasing human population, and land use changes. Behavioural changes are vast, including shifting activity patterns, restricted movement, and altered species interactions. In order to get an overview of how human activities have impacted animals, we can combine bio-logging data across multiple species and across large-spatial scales. This has become easier with the increasing availability of bio-logging data, and we can now combine techniques from macroecology and bio-logging to quantify the effects of humans on animal behaviour worldwide. I will provide examples from my research using multi-species GPS data to illustrate that animal movement patterns are changing in human-modified landscapes. As movement is a key ecological trait of animals, shifting movement patterns not only affects population persistence, but also ecosystem processes, such as nutrient cycling, and disease transmission. Here, I will show how we can apply our findings from a multi-species approach to explore the potential consequences of altered behaviour for animal populations and ecosystem processes. By combining data from multiple species and countries, we can develop a broad general understanding of animal behaviour in the Anthropocene, which is important for understanding a range of ecological patterns including species interactions and animal responses to changing environments.

Biography

Marlee Tucker is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Science at Radboud University, the Netherlands. She is interested in large scale patterns in ecology, biogeography and evolution that can aid our understanding of species vulnerability to changing environments that can be utilised for conservation. Her research encompasses macroecological questions related to allometric scaling, predator–prey interactions and animal behaviour. Her recent projects combine macroecology and movement ecology to examine how humans have altered animal behaviour and the consequences of these changes for populations and ecosystem processes.