AMOveE 2014: Ran Nathan (keynote)

This keynote talk was presented by Ran Nathan on 6 May 2014 as part of the Symposium on Animal Movement and the Environment, held at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, NC.

Nathan R, 2014, "Movement ecology keeps moving forward: why, how, when and where are we going?"

Abstract: Understanding and predicting the dynamics of complex ecological and evolutionary systems are best accomplished through the synthesis and integration of information, tools and ideas across relevant spatial, temporal and thematic scales. Recent advances in mechanistic modeling, data analysis tools and tracking technology have enriched our capacity to disentangle the key parameters affecting foraging, migration, dispersal and other movement processes and to accurately quantify movement patterns over (and through) land, water or air. In lieu of this favorable background, the field of movement ecology has recently emerged to unify movement research by elucidating the links between the internal state, the motion and the navigation capacities of the individual, the external environmental factors affecting its movement, and the resulting movement pattern. Due to the generality and broad applicability of its basic components, the movement ecology framework provides a unifying template for elucidating the commonalities and differences among species, movement phenomena and environments. As such, movement ecology offers a natural platform for examining the causes, consequences, patterns and mechanisms underlying movement processes, towards the foundation of a generalized theory of organismal movement that can unify different movement types, taxonomic groups and ecosystems. To put this in a broader scientific perspective, Freeman J. Dyson has concluded his appraisal of current research in Physics (Science, 14 Dec 2012) stating that "we are lucky to live in a time when both [tools and ideas] are going strong"; this prognosis utterly describes the current status of movement ecology as well, but we could and should make both ever stronger, and pursue their integration in particular.
The Symposium on Animal Movement and the Environment (AMoveE) at Raleigh has attracted many researchers to present and discuss their exciting cutting-edge movement ecology studies. The abstracts, the tutorials, and the planned topics jointly depict unmistakable footprints of an exceptionally flourishing scientific enterprise. The time has ripen to challenge major barriers in quantifying, understanding and predicting the movements of organisms, and AMoveE provides a perfect opportunity to discuss why, how, when and where should we go. Towards this end, I will present the basic motivation and principles of the movement ecology approach, and illustrate its application to study different types of movements across species and environments. I will aim to highlight the links among the major movement phenomena, and to propose some possible ways to close the gaps among existing fields of movement research, to stimulate the development and sharing of tools and ideas, and to set the stage for formulating a unified general theory of organismal movements.