Climate change is progressing at an alarming rate at high northern latitudes with widespread ecological consequences to the animals that reside there. MPYC members Martin Wikelski and Ruth Oliver contributed a study published yesterday in Science which presents the release of an ongoing collection of data sets detailing changes in animal behavior for 96 species across the Arctic as well as case studies highlighting the importance of long-term, cross-taxa study. The Arctic Animal Movement Archive, hosted by Movebank at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, aims to lower barriers to collaboration and large-scale studies by presenting over 200 data sets in standardized form, representing over 12,000 marine and terrestrial animals. A NASA Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment project led by Natalie Boelman of Columbia University led to the creation of the archive. By crossing political boundaries, the archive will support urgent questions in movement ecology and conservation in the Arctic globally.
