ezTrack: An R Package for Accessible Exploration of Animal Tracking Data

Area of Science:

• Wildlife ecology
• Spatial ecology
• Conservation biology

Background:

• Tracking devices provide crucial data on wildlife spatial and movement ecology.
• Processing animal tracking data presents technical challenges for many researchers and practitioners.
• Existing R packages often require advanced spatial data-wrangling skills.

Purpose of the Study:

• Introduce ezTrack, an R package to simplify animal tracking data exploration.
• Improve accessibility of movement data workflows for a broader audience.
• Facilitate responsible and reproducible handling of tracking data.

Main Methods:

• ezTrack streamlines importing and standardizing diverse tracking data formats.
• The package facilitates summarizing key tracking statistics and estimating home ranges.
• It generates clear visual outputs, including interactive maps and summary reports.

Main Results:

• ezTrack enables quick data import, standardization, and exploration.
• Users can easily generate summary statistics, home range estimates, and visualizations.
• The package supports rapid creation of summary reports for effective communication.

Conclusions:

• ezTrack empowers researchers, ecologists, and students to analyze tracking data with less technical input.
• The package enhances the accessibility of spatial ecology insights from wildlife tracking.
• ezTrack promotes reproducible research and effective communication of movement ecology findings.