This project investigated the effect of snowfall events on the movement behaviour of grey wolves. We quantified wolf movement using GPS telemetry data and identified snowfall events using remote cameras. The study took place in the boreal forest of northern Alberta, Canada, over the course of two winters (Jan. to Mar. 2013 and 2014).
Droghini, A., and S. Boutin. 2018. The calm during the storm: Snowfall events decrease the movement rates of grey wolves (Canis lupus). PLoS ONE 13(10): e0205742. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0205742
- R version 3.5.0 (https://www.r-project.org/)
- RStudio version 1.1.453 (https://www.rstudio.com/)
The following R packages must be installed: plyr, dplyr, tidyr, data.table, mixtools, suncalc, MuMIn, lme4, nlme, ggplot2
The following folder structure must be in place for the scripts to run properly:
..\data [contains telemetry and remote camera data]
..\data\outputs [for model and dataframe outputs]
..\figures [for output of final plots]
Data collected from our remote cameras are available in the \data folder. Telemetry data available on Movebank (https://www.movebank.org/) as part of the "ABoVE: Boutin Alberta Grey Wolf" study (study ID #492444603). If you are interested in using our data or collaborating with us, please contact Amanda Droghini: droghini (at) ualberta.ca.
Many thanks to our project coordinator, Holger Bohm, and our field technicians Kristin Cline, Kevin Coates, Kelley Humphries, Adam Hope, Eric Neilson, Keenan Peddie, and Brynlee Thomas. Research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance, les Fonds de recherche du Québec - Nature et technologies, and the University of Alberta.