Estimating overlap of daily activity patterns from camera trap data

• Published in: Journal of agricultural, biological, and environmental statistics Vol. 14; no. 3; pp. 322 - 337
• Main Authors: Ridout, M.S, Linkie, M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York American Statistical Association and the International Biometric Society 01.09.2009; Springer-Verlag; American Statistical Association; International Biometric Society
• Subjects: Agriculture; Agronomy. Soil science and plant productions; animal behavior; Animal traps; Biological and medical sciences; Biometrics, statistics, experimental designs, modeling, agricultural computer applications; Biostatistics; Cameras; Catopuma temminckii; Cats; Coefficients; Density; Density estimation; diurnal activity; estimation; Estimation bias; Estimation methods; Estimators; Felidae; females; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Generalities. Biometrics, experimentation. Remote sensing; Health Sciences; Indonesia; interspecific competition; males; Mammalia; Mathematics and Statistics; Medicine; methodology; Monitoring/Environmental Analysis; Neofelis; Neofelis diardi; Panthera tigris; photography; simulation models; statistical analysis; Statistics; Statistics for Life Sciences; Tigers; traps; Vertebrates: general zoology, morphology, phylogeny, systematics, cytogenetics, geographical distribution; wildlife management; Indonesia; Clouded leopard; Sumatran tiger; Overlap coefficient; Circular data; ); Trigonometric sum distribution; Kernel density estimation; Golden cat; Fissipedia; Density estimation; Golden cat (Catopuma temminckii); Carnivora; Panthera tigris; Clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi); Daily variation; Trap; Overlap; Vertebrata; Mammalia; Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris)
• ISSN: 1085-7117; 1537-2693
• DOI: 10.1198/jabes.2009.08038

Data from camera traps that record the time of day at which photographs are taken are used widely to study daily activity patterns of photographed species. It is often of interest to compare activity patterns, for example, between males and females of a species or between a predator and a prey species. In this article we propose that the similarity between two activity patterns may be quantified by a measure of the extent to which the patterns overlap. Several methods of estimating this overlap measure are described and their comparative performance for activity data is investigated in a simulation study. The methods are illustrated by comparing activity patterns of three sympatric felid species using data from camera traps in Kerinci Seblat National Park, Sumatra.