Identifying road avoidance behavior using time‐geography for red deer in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada

Abstract

AbstractAnalysis of animal movement as a complex spatiotemporal signal attenuated by behavioural and contextual factors comprises a recent perspective in the time‐geographic study of movement. For their significant ecological and human impacts, animal–roadway interactions have become a particularly important subject matter in this arena. Analyses relying on spatiotemporal aggregation or reductive modelling of the information held in movement trajectories may overlook the influences of behaviour and environmental context. Towards expanding perspectives on animal movement and roadway interactions, this research acknowledges and characterizes the varying influence of temporally dynamic elements in the environmental context at fine spatiotemporal scales. In particular, these elements are hourly traffic volumes and their effect on the probability of animal–roadway interactions. A set of methods from time geography and signal analysis, including the probabilistic space‐time prism, comprehensive probability surface, and cross‐correlation were combined to provide for serial comparison of hourly roadway interaction probabilities and traffic volumes for red deer (Cervus elaphus) tracked in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. Results suggest a cyclical, diurnal repulsion in roadway interaction probabilities from periods of higher traffic volume at the hourly scale in the study area, consistent with prior theoretical and empirical findings on ungulates living in similar environmental settings.