Using movement parameters to infer dynamic interactions between moving object pairs. GeoComputation 2019

‘Interactions’ between and among moving objects occur across widely varying spatial and temporal scales and are an important component for understanding spatial behaviours such as mating, predation, and territoriality as well as phenomena resulting from these behaviours such as disease spread. ‘Dynamic interactions’ refer to interactions that are defined based on proximity in both space and time and while social network analysis can be applicable for studying interactions among human individuals as well as among animal individuals, a ‘dyad’ (comprised of two individuals) is more often used as the unit for studying interactions between animal individuals. The two main approaches of quantifying dynamic interactions between two individuals involve treating the locations as discrete points or examining the paths that are inferred as trajectories between subsequent points. In this research I present results that use a hybrid approach of quantifying interactions using spatiotemporal point proximity and comparing movement path parameters to infer interaction behaviors. This new method is applied to thirteen black-backed jackal dyads in Etosha National Park, Namibia.