Remote sensing of animals

The improved accuracy and precision of animal tracking via satellites has m ade a significant impact on quantifying large-scale biogeographic patterns for a variety of taxa with important implications for conservation and natu ral resource management. This paper reviews research undertaken from 1995 t o 1999 to provide an overview of advances in the remote sensing of animal m ovements in both terrestrial and marine environments and to identify promis ing trends for biogeographic research in the twenty-first century. Remote s ensing of animals by satellite provides a new method to test a number of bi ogeographic hypotheses related to migration and can identify a number of en vironmental correlates associated with the distributions of species. Tracki ng of smaller species and increases in sample size are sure to occur as tra nsmitter size and cost continue to decrease in the next decade. Geographers can significantly contribute to the understanding of species dispersal and distributional patterns by combining real-time and archived global and reg ional datasets with existing data from past studies and future research pro jects. Only four studies used GIS data or remote sensed imagery in this rev iew, while the remaining studies cited used simple digital line graphs of c ountries, topography, land and sea boundaries.