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How Tracking Technology is Transforming Animal Ecology: Epistemic Values, Interdisciplinarity, and Technology-Driven Scientific Change

Trappes, Rose (2023) How Tracking Technology is Transforming Animal Ecology: Epistemic Values, Interdisciplinarity, and Technology-Driven Scientific Change. Synthese, 201. p. 128. ISSN 1573-0964

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Abstract

Tracking technology has been heralded as transformative for animal ecology. In this paper I examine what changes are taking place, showing how current animal movement research is a field ripe for philosophical investigation. I focus first on how the devices alter the limitations and biases of traditional field observation, making observation of animal movement and behaviour possible in more detail, for more varied species, and under a broader variety of conditions, as well as restricting the influence of human presence and observer bias. I reconstruct these as shifts in scope, objectivity, accuracy and fruitfulness. The second transformation is slightly less obvious but equally significant for animal ecology. Tracking devices generate complex data that demands both statistical and biological expertise, which has led to increasingly frequent and intensive collaborations between statisticians and biologists. Based on interviews, I examine how researchers in these interdisciplinary collaborations negotiate the collection, analysis and interpretation of movement data, integrating research interests, methodological constraints, previous field observations, and background theory. Tracking technology is therefore also shifting which disciplinary considerations are brought to bear on research into animal movement and behaviour and how this research is conducted.

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Item Type: Published Article or Volume
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CreatorsEmailORCID
Trappes, Roser.g.trappes@exeter.ac.uk0000-0002-6398-5404
Additional Information: Recommended citation: Trappes, Rose. 2023. ‘How Tracking Technology Is Transforming Animal Ecology: Epistemic Values, Interdisciplinarity, and Technology-Driven Scientific Change’. Synthese 201:128. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04122-5.
Keywords: Movement ecology; Biotelemetry; Data-centric science; Interdisciplinarity; Scientific change; Objectivity; Fruitfulness
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Biology > Ecology/Conservation
Specific Sciences > Probability/Statistics
General Issues > Technology
General Issues > Values In Science
Depositing User: Dr Rose Trappes
Date Deposited: 27 Jun 2024 13:44
Last Modified: 27 Jun 2024 13:44
Item ID: 23637
Journal or Publication Title: Synthese
Publisher: Springer (Springer Science+Business Media B.V.)
DOI or Unique Handle: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04122-5
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Biology > Ecology/Conservation
Specific Sciences > Probability/Statistics
General Issues > Technology
General Issues > Values In Science
Date: 27 March 2023
Page Range: p. 128
Volume: 201
ISSN: 1573-0964
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/23637

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