Environmental Predictability as a Cause and Consequence of Animal Movement
Authors: Louise Riotte-Lambert, Jason Matthiopoulos
Journal: Trends in Ecology & Evolution (2019)

Environmental predictability acts as a selective pressure on animal cognition and behaviour.Together, animals' cognition, movement abilities, and environmental predictability interactively determine the emergence of movement patterns.Conversely, animal movement can impact environmental predictability. This could create ecoevolutionary feedback loops, which are still very little studied.Human activities can impact environmental predictability and therefore animal movement and wildlife populations' viability.The study of the environmental predictability–animal movement interface has recently benefited from the improvement of tracking and remote sensing technologies but is lacking unification. Here we propose a unified view of this critical interface. The impacts of environmental predictability on the ecology and evolution of animal movement have been the subject of vigorous speculation for several decades. Recently, the swell of new biologging technologies has further stimulated their investigation. This advancing research frontier, however, still lacks conceptual unification and has so far focused little on converse effects. Populations of moving animals have ubiquitous effects on processes such as nutrient cycling and seed dispersal and may therefore shape patterns of environmental predictability. Here, we synthesise the main strands of the literature on the feedbacks between environmental predictability and animal movement and discuss how they may react to anthropogenic disruption, leading to unexpected threats for wildlife and the environment. The impacts of environmental predictability on the ecology and evolution of animal movement have been the subject of vigorous speculation for several decades. Recently, the swell of new biologging technologies has further stimulated their investigation. This advancing research frontier, however, still lacks conceptual unification and has so far focused little on converse effects. Populations of moving animals have ubiquitous effects on processes such as nutrient cycling and seed dispersal and may therefore shape patterns of environmental predictability. Here, we synthesise the main strands of the literature on the feedbacks between environmental predictability and animal movement and discuss how they may react to anthropogenic disruption, leading to unexpected threats for wildlife and the environment. Deciphering the cues and rules that animals use for their relocation decisions is one of the major goals of movement ecology [1Fagan W.F. et al.Spatial memory and animal movement.Ecol. Lett. 2013; 16: 1316-1329Crossref PubMed Scopus (241) Google Scholar, 2Fagan W.F. et al.Perceptual ranges, information gathering, and foraging success in dynamic landscapes.Am. Nat. 2017; 189: 474-489Crossref PubMed Scopus (29) Google Scholar]. Some environmental characteristics, such as seasonality, can render the environment predictable to animals with the appropriate cognitive skills or engrained behaviour (see Glossary). Environmental predictability enables animals to reduce the uncertainty of the environmental conditions they experience. It thus acts as a selective pressure favouring the evolution of engrained behaviour or cognitive skills such as spatial memory (Box 1) [3Mery F. Natural variation in learning and memory.Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 2013; 23: 52-56Crossref PubMed Scopus (55) Google Scholar, 4Morand-Ferron J. et al.Studying the evolutionary ecology of cognition in the wild: a review of practical and conceptual challenges.Biol. Rev. 2015; 91: 367-389Crossref PubMed Scopus (110) Google Scholar]. Awareness of these important evolutionary impacts, combined with the ongoing revolution in biologging and remote sensing technologies, have inspired a fast-growing literature on the movement patterns that emerge from presumed cognitive adaptations to environmental predictability (e.g., [1Fagan W.F. et al.Spatial memory and animal movement.Ecol. Lett. 2013; 16: 1316-1329Crossref PubMed Scopus (241) Google Scholar]). The opening of these new research frontiers is understandably inundated with diverse definitions of environmental predictability that are, as yet, only rarely quantified from data (e.g., [5Fluhr J. et al.Assessing the risk for an obligate scavenger to be dependent on predictable feeding sources.Biol. Conserv. 2017; 215: 92-98Crossref Scopus (12) Google Scholar, 6Martin J. et al.Coping with spatial heterogeneity and temporal variability in resources and risks: adaptive movement behaviour by a large grazing herbivore.PLoS One. 2015; 10: e0118461PubMed Google Scholar], but see [7Mueller T. et al.How landscape dynamics link individual- to population-level movement patterns: a multispecies comparison of ungulate relocation data.Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr. 2011; 20: 683-694Crossref Scopus (117) Google Scholar, 8Bastille-Rousseau G. et al.Animal movement in the absence of predation: environmental drivers of movement strategies in a partial migration system.Oikos. 2017; 126: 1004-1019Crossref Scopus (17) Google Scholar, 9Couriot O. et al.Truly sedentary? The multi-range tactic as a response to resource heterogeneity and unpredictability in a large herbivore.Oecologia. 2018; 187: 47-60Crossref PubMed Scopus (12) Google Scholar]). This sparsity of conceptual agreement and methodological tools has limited the thorough investigation of hypotheses on the proximate and ultimate drivers of animal movement.Box 1Engrained Behaviour or Cognition?The environmental conditions and resources used by animals are thought to explain the evolution of movement behaviours and cognitive abilities observed in the wild [3Mery F. Natural variation in learning and memory.Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 2013; 23: 52-56Crossref PubMed Scopus (55) Google Scholar, 4Morand-Ferron J. et al.Studying the evolutionary ecology of cognition in the wild: a review of practical and conceptual challenges.Biol. Rev. 2015; 91: 367-389Crossref PubMed Scopus (110) Google Scholar]. However, the balance between engrained behaviours (i.e., behaviours genetically encoded or fixed by learning during early stages of behavioural development) and cognitively flexible responses depends on environmental predictability.Animals generally combine different types of behaviours (engrained and cognitively flexible), but schematically we expect that genetically engrained behaviours develop as adaptations to environments or environmental features that are highly predictable over several generations (see top-right corner of Figure 1 in main text; [3Mery F. Natural variation in learning and memory.Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 2013; 23: 52-56Crossref PubMed Scopus (55) Google Scholar]). For example, the timing and direction of migration is, in many species, at least partly engrained [42Kölzsch A. et al.Forecasting spring from afar? Timing of migration and predictability of phenology along different migration routes of an avian herbivore.J. Anim. Ecol. 2015; 84: 272-283Crossref PubMed Scopus (52) Google Scholar]. Other species are predisposed to follow an environmental gradient while migrating [34Merkle J.A. et al.Large herbivores surf waves of green-up in spring.Proc. Biol. Sci. 2016; 283: 20160456Crossref PubMed Scopus (126) Google Scholar]. The engrained tendency of an individual to stay in its natal population (i.e., to not disperse and be philopatric) is also expected to be positively correlated with environmental predictability [82Bocedi G. et al.Uncertainty and the role of information acquisition in the evolution of context-dependent emigration.Am. Nat. 2012; 179: 606-620Crossref PubMed Scopus (51) Google Scholar].Conversely, cognitive abilities allow behavioural flexibility but are costly [3Mery F. Natural variation in learning and memory.Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 2013; 23: 52-56Crossref PubMed Scopus (55) Google Scholar]. In environments with a relatively high level of predictability, individual learning and memory can be advantageous (see Figure 1 in main text; [3Mery F. Natural variation in learning and memory.Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 2013; 23: 52-56Crossref PubMed Scopus (55) Google Scholar]). They are widespread in the animal kingdom and their variation between species is thought to relate to environmental conditions [1Fagan W.F. et al.Spatial memory and animal movement.Ecol. Lett. 2013; 16: 1316-1329Crossref PubMed Scopus (241) Google Scholar, 3Mery F. Natural variation in learning and memory.Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 2013; 23: 52-56Crossref PubMed Scopus (55) Google Scholar, 4Morand-Ferron J. et al.Studying the evolutionary ecology of cognition in the wild: a review of practical and conceptual challenges.Biol. Rev. 2015; 91: 367-389Crossref PubMed Scopus (110) Google Scholar, 83Tello-Ramos M.C. et al.Spatial memory and cognitive flexibility trade-offs: to be or not to be flexible, that is the question.Anim. Behav. 2019; 147: 129-136Crossref Scopus (29) Google Scholar]. For example, memory retention is expected to be favoured in more stable (i.e., more predictable) environments [83Tello-Ramos M.C. et al.Spatial memory and cognitive flexibility trade-offs: to be or not to be flexible, that is the question.Anim. Behav. 2019; 147: 129-136Crossref Scopus (29) Google Scholar]. Even in environments where learning and memory are advantageous, some characteristics of memory can be engrained and preadapted to the highly predictable characteristics of the environments the individuals typically use. For example, the time for which captive-reared honeyeaters avoid rewarding places is adapted to the replenishment rate of the flowers they exploit in the wild [62Burke D. Fulham B.J. An evolved spatial memory bias in a nectar-feeding bird?.Anim. Behav. 2003; 66: 695-701Crossref Scopus (29) Google Scholar]. However, more research is necessary to understand the specific aspects of spatial memory that are engrained or flexible depending on environmental conditions [83Tello-Ramos M.C. et al.Spatial memory and cognitive flexibility trade-offs: to be or not to be flexible, that is the question.Anim. Behav. 2019; 147: 129-136Crossref Scopus (29) Google Scholar]. This investigation could however be complicated by the fact that recursion times finely tuned to resource renewal times can emerge from simple trial-and-error processes [55Riotte-Lambert L. et al.How memory-based movement leads to nonterritorial spatial segregation.Am. Nat. 2015; 185: E103-E116Crossref PubMed Scopus (30) Google Scholar].As environmental predictability decreases, foraging individuals are expected to increase their use of social information compared with personal memory, to improve their access to more ephemeral information (see Figure 1 in main text; [48Shaw A.K. Couzin I.D. Migration or residency? The evolution of movement behavior and information usage in seasonal environments.Am. Nat. 2013; 181: 114-124Crossref PubMed Scopus (48) Google Scholar, 84Deygout C. et al.Impact of food predictability on social facilitation by foraging scavengers.Behav. Ecol. 2010; 21: 1131-1139Crossref Scopus (49) Google Scholar]). Finally, in highly unpredictable environments, individuals are expected to use engrained behaviour because the cost of evolving the appropriate information-gathering abilities would be too high (see bottom-left corner of Figure 1 in main text; [82Bocedi G. et al.Uncertainty and the role of information acquisition in the evolution of context-dependent emigration.Am. Nat. 2012; 179: 606-620Crossref PubMed Scopus (51) Google Scholar]). The environmental conditions and resources used by animals are thought to explain the evolution of movement behaviours and cognitive abilities observed in the wild [3Mery F. Natural variation in learning and memory.Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 2013; 23: 52-56Crossref PubMed Scopus (55) Google Scholar, 4Morand-Ferron J. et al.Studying the evolutionary ecology of cognition in the wild: a review of practical and conceptual challenges.Biol. Rev. 2015; 91: 367-389Crossref PubMed Scopus (110) Google Scholar]. However, the balance between engrained behaviours (i.e., behaviours genetically encoded or fixed by learning during early stages of behavioural development) and cognitively flexible responses depends on environmental predictability. Animals generally combine different types of behaviours (engrained and cognitively flexible), but schematically we expect that genetically engrained behaviours develop as adaptations to environments or environmental features that are highly predictable over several generations (see top-right corner of Figure 1 in main text; [3Mery F. Natural variation in learning and memory.Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 2013; 23: 52-56Crossref PubMed Scopus (55) Google Scholar]). For example, the timing and direction of migration is, in many species, at least partly engrained [42Kölzsch A. et al.Forecasting spring from afar? Timing of migration and predictability of phenology along different migration routes of an avian herbivore.J. Anim. Ecol. 2015; 84: 272-283Crossref PubMed Scopus (52) Google Scholar]. Other species are predisposed to follow an environmental gradient while migrating [34Merkle J.A. et al.Large herbivores surf waves of green-up in spring.Proc. Biol. Sci. 2016; 283: 20160456Crossref PubMed Scopus (126) Google Scholar]. The engrained tendency of an individual to stay in its natal population (i.e., to not disperse and be philopatric) is also expected to be positively correlated with environmental predictability [82Bocedi G. et al.Uncertainty and the role of information acquisition in the evolution of context-dependent emigration.Am. Nat. 2012; 179: 606-620Crossref PubMed Scopus (51) Google Scholar]. Conversely, cognitive abilities allow behavioural flexibility but are costly [3Mery F. Natural variation in learning and memory.Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 2013; 23: 52-56Crossref PubMed Scopus (55) Google Scholar]. In environments with a relatively high level of predictability, individual learning and memory can be advantageous (see Figure 1 in main text; [3Mery F. Natural variation in learning and memory.Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 2013; 23: 52-56Crossref PubMed Scopus (55) Google Scholar]). They are widespread in the animal kingdom and their variation between species is thought to relate to environmental conditions [1Fagan W.F. et al.Spatial memory and animal movement.Ecol. Lett. 2013; 16: 1316-1329Crossref PubMed Scopus (241) Google Scholar, 3Mery F. Natural variation in learning and memory.Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 2013; 23: 52-56Crossref PubMed Scopus (55) Google Scholar, 4Morand-Ferron J. et al.Studying the evolutionary ecology of cognition in the wild: a review of practical and conceptual challenges.Biol. Rev. 2015; 91: 367-389Crossref PubMed Scopus (110) Google Scholar, 83Tello-Ramos M.C. et al.Spatial memory and cognitive flexibility trade-offs: to be or not to be flexible, that is the question.Anim. Behav. 2019; 147: 129-136Crossref Scopus (29) Google Scholar]. For example, memory retention is expected to be favoured in more stable (i.e., more predictable) environments [83Tello-Ramos M.C. et al.Spatial memory and cognitive flexibility trade-offs: to be or not to be flexible, that is the question.Anim. Behav. 2019; 147: 129-136Crossref Scopus (29) Google Scholar]. Even in environments where learning and memory are advantageous, some characteristics of memory can be engrained and preadapted to the highly predictable characteristics of the environments the individuals typically use. For example, the time for which captive-reared honeyeaters avoid rewarding places is adapted to the replenishment rate of the flowers they exploit in the wild [62Burke D. Fulham B.J. An evolved spatial memory bias in a nectar-feeding bird?.Anim. Behav. 2003; 66: 695-701Crossref Scopus (29) Google Scholar]. However, more research is necessary to understand the specific aspects of spatial memory that are engrained or flexible depending on environmental conditions [83Tello-Ramos M.C. et al.Spatial memory and cognitive flexibility trade-offs: to be or not to be flexible, that is the question.Anim. Behav. 2019; 147: 129-136Crossref Scopus (29) Google Scholar]. This investigation could however be complicated by the fact that recursion times finely tuned to resource renewal times can emerge from simple trial-and-error processes [55Riotte-Lambert L. et al.How memory-based movement leads to nonterritorial spatial segregation.Am. Nat. 2015; 185: E103-E116Crossref PubMed Scopus (30) Google Scholar]. As environmental predictability decreases, foraging individuals are expected to increase their use of social information compared with personal memory, to improve their access to more ephemeral information (see Figure 1 in main text; [48Shaw A.K. Couzin I.D. Migration or residency? The evolution of movement behavior and information usage in seasonal environments.Am. Nat. 2013; 181: 114-124Crossref PubMed Scopus (48) Google Scholar, 84Deygout C. et al.Impact of food predictability on social facilitation by foraging scavengers.Behav. Ecol. 2010; 21: 1131-1139Crossref Scopus (49) Google Scholar]). Finally, in highly unpredictable environments, individuals are expected to use engrained behaviour because the cost of evolving the appropriate information-gathering abilities would be too high (see bottom-left corner of Figure 1 in main text; [82Bocedi G. et al.Uncertainty and the role of information acquisition in the evolution of context-dependent emigration.Am. Nat. 2012; 179: 606-620Crossref PubMed Scopus (51) Google Scholar]). Conversely, the potential impacts of moving animals on environmental patterns have received little attention despite their postulated consequences for many ecological processes, such as biodiversity dynamics [10Jeltsch F. et al.Integrating movement ecology with biodiversity research – exploring new avenues to address spatiotemporal biodiversity dynamics.Mov. Ecol. 2013; 1: 6Crossref PubMed Scopus (109) Google Scholar], disease transmission [11Mazé-Guilmo E. et al.Host dispersal as the driver of parasite genetic structure: a paradigm lost?.Ecol. Lett. 2016; 19: 336-347Crossref PubMed Scopus (58) Google Scholar], ecosystem functioning [12Lundberg J. Moberg F. Mobile link organisms and ecosystem functioning: implications for ecosystem resilience and management.Ecosystems. 2003; 6: 87-98Crossref Scopus (344) Google Scholar, 13Bauer S. Hoye B.J. 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In principle, a two-way link between animal movement and the environment could lead to the existence of feedback loops that either amplify the predictability of the overall system (a mechanism of niche construction, as suggested for some seed-dispersing primates [17Di Fiore A. Suarez S.A. Route-based travel and shared routes in sympatric spider and woolly monkeys: cognitive and evolutionary implications.Anim. Cogn. 2007; 10: 317-329Crossref PubMed Scopus (100) Google Scholar]) or dissipate it. Parallel to these considerations are concerns about rapid but little-understood anthropogenic disruptions to environmental rhythms and movement patterns. For example, supplementary feeding, which artificially increases environmental predictability, could favour the aggregation of individuals and thus facilitate disease transmission [18Cortés-Avizanda A. et al.Supplementary feeding and endangered avian scavengers: benefits, caveats, and controversies.Front. Ecol. Environ. 2016; 14: 191-199Crossref Scopus (73) Google Scholar]. Conversely, human activities in some cases disrupt predictable environmental dynamics. For example, the spatially uneven rate of climate change across the globe could lead to different rates of warming in the breeding grounds compared with the wintering grounds of migrant birds, disrupting their migration [19Jones T. Cresswell W. The phenology mismatch hypothesis: are declines of migrant birds linked to uneven global climate change?.J. Anim. Ecol. 2010; 79: 98-108Crossref PubMed Scopus (154) Google Scholar]. To advance our knowledge of the proximate and ultimate drivers of animal movement, and to anticipate threats to the viability of animal species, we need a theory of predictability in movement ecology. Here, we synthesise the literature into a general definition, a typology, and a set of methodologies for quantifying environmental predictability, taking into account its scale dependency (Box 2). We then review the movement-related adaptations to environmental predictability and the methods designed to detect and characterise them, we outline recent ideas on the feedbacks between animal movement and environmental predictability, and we speculate on how human activities might alter patterns of wildlife movement by affecting environmental predictability (Box 3).Box 2The Scale of Environmental PredictabilityMost environments display multiscale organisation in space and time [85Chave J. The problem of pattern and scale in ecology: what have we learned in 20 years?.Ecol. Lett. 2013; 16: 4-16Crossref PubMed Scopus (209) Google Scholar]. As a response, movement generally comprises scale-dependent processes, between which animals shift [69Benhamou S. Of scales and stationarity in animal movements.Ecol. Lett. 2014; 17: 261-272Crossref PubMed Scopus (85) Google Scholar]. Environmental patterns at different scales can differ in terms of predictability. For example, in marine environments as exploited by seabirds, mesoscale habitat features (e.g., shelf edges) show high levels of predictability, whereas fine-scale features (e.g., fish swarms) are comparatively less predictable [26Weimerskirch H. Are seabirds foraging for unpredictable resources?.Deep Sea Res. Part 2 Top. Stud. Oceanogr. 2007; 54: 211-223Crossref Scopus (398) Google Scholar, 35Fauchald P. et al.Scale-dependent predator-prey interactions: the hierarchical spatial distribution of seabirds and prey.Ecology. 2000; 81: 773-783Google Scholar]. Animals thus adopt multimode movement strategies; for example, by using spatial memory to relocate predictable habitat features or patches and thereby establish a home range in a predictable landscape [7Mueller T. et al.How landscape dynamics link individual- to population-level movement patterns: a multispecies comparison of ungulate relocation data.Glob. Ecol. 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Behav. 2013; 86: 545-552Crossref Scopus (37) Google Scholar, 87Adachi T. et al.Searching for prey in a three-dimensional environment: hierarchical movements enhance foraging success in northern elephant seals.Funct. Ecol. 2017; 31: 361-369Crossref Scopus (22) Google Scholar, 88van Beest F.M. et al.Temporal variation in site fidelity: scale-dependent effects of forage abundance and predation risk in a non-migratory large herbivore.Oecologia. 2013; 173: 409-420Crossref PubMed Scopus (37) Google Scholar, 89Bastille-Rousseau G. et al.Spatial scales of habitat selection decisions: implications for telemetry-based movement modelling.Ecography. 2018; 41: 437-443Crossref Scopus (13) Google Scholar]. Therefore, the definition of environmental predictability, in the context of movement ecology, must be scale dependent: different predictability levels at different scales lead to different behavioural adaptations and movement patterns. The scale dependency of environmental predictability has been highlighted in other ecology subfields (e.g., anticipatory parental effects [36Burgess S.C. Marshall D.J. Adaptive parental effects: the importance of estimating environmental predictability and offspring fitness appropriately.Oikos. 2014; 123: 769-776Crossref Scopus (152) Google Scholar]).Box 3The Human Impacts on Environmental Predictability and Their Animal Movement ConsequencesThe very rapid and heavy anthropogenic changes that ecosystems are currently undergoing have consequences for animal movement [90Tucker M.A. et al.Moving in the Anthropocene: global reductions in terrestrial mammalian movements.Science. 2018; 359: 466-469Crossref PubMed Scopus (349) Google Scholar]. Human-induced increases in environmental predictability could constitute an ecological trap if, for example, animals are more attracted to predictable resources and thus use suboptimal habitats [91Robertson B.A. et al.Ecological novelty and the emergence of evolutionary traps.Trends Ecol. Evol. 2013; 28: 552-560Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (240) Google Scholar]. Many seabirds alter their movements to exploit fishery discards [92Patrick S.C. et al.Individual seabirds show consistent foraging strategies in response to predictable fisheries discards.J. Avian Biol. 2015; 46: 431-440Crossref Scopus (42) Google Scholar] and landfills [93Corman A.-M. et al.Varying foraging patterns in response to competition? A multicolony approach in a generalist seabird.Ecol. Evol. 2016; 6: 974-986Crossref PubMed Scopus (34) Google Scholar]. The year-round availability of food in landfills has led to the loss of migratory behaviour in some species [94Gilbert N.I. et al.Are white storks addicted to junk food? Impacts of landfill use on the movement and behaviour of resident white storks (Ciconia ciconia) from a partially migratory population.Mov. Ecol. 2015; 4: 7Crossref Scopus (78) Google Scholar]. The availability of human-derived foods in cities has also led to the modification of the movement behaviour of many animals, such as chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) [95Fehlmann G. et al.Adaptive space use by baboons (Papio ursinus) in response to management interventions in a human-changed landscape.Anim. Conserv. 2017; 20: 101-109Crossref Scopus (13) Google Scholar] and black bears (Ursus americanus) [96Lewis D.L. et al.Foraging ecology of black bears in urban environments: guidance for human-bear conflict mitigation.Ecosphere. 2015; 6: 1-18Crossref Scopus (48) Google Scholar]. Agriculture also provides highly abundant and predictable food resources, thus modifying the foraging behaviour of many animals and leading to human–wildlife conflicts [97Taylor R.A. et al.Hunting, food subsidies, and mesopredator release: the dynamics of crop-raiding baboons in a managed landscape.Ecology. 2016; 97: 951-960Crossref PubMed Scopus (15) Google Scholar]. Finally, several studies have revealed weekly periodic patterns in wild animals' movements, suggesting an impact of human activities [30Riotte-Lambert L. et al.Periodicity analysis of movement recursions.J. Theor. Biol. 2013; 317: 238-243Crossref PubMed Scopus (34) Google Scholar, 66Péron G. et al.Periodic continuous-time movement models uncover behavioral changes of wild canids along anthropization gradients.Ecol. Monogr. 2017; 87: 442-456Crossref Scopus (12) Google Scholar].Some human alterations to environmental predictability are initially intended to help wildlife. Supplementary feeding, a common management measure targeting animals thought to be limited by food, increases environmental predictability but could create dependency on humans [5Fluhr J. et al.Assessing the risk for an obligate scavenger to be dependent on predictable feeding sources.Biol. Conserv. 2017; 215: 92-98Crossref Scopus (12) Google Scholar]. This can percolate to nontarget species; for example, supplementary feeding of wild ungulates impacts the movements of brown bears (Ursus arctos) [98Selva N. et al.Supplementary ungulate feeding affects movement behavior of brown bears.Basic Appl. Ecol. 2017; 24: 68-76Crossref Scopus (17) Google Scholar]. Beyond the possible detrimental effects of an increase in environmental predictability due to human activities, the fact that it leads to more predictable movement could be used to inform management measures. For example, supplementary feeding can divert avian scavengers from the consumption of poisoned carcasses [18Cortés-Avizanda A. et al.Supplementary feeding and endangered avian scavengers: benefits, caveats, and controversies.Front. Ecol. Environ. 2016; 14: 191-199Crossref Scopus (73) Google Scholar] and could be used to reduce traffic collisions with wild ungulates by leading them away from roads [99Milner J.M. et al.To feed or not to feed? Evidence of the intended and unintended effects of feeding wild ungulates.J. Wildl. Manage. 2014; 78: 1322-1334Crossref Scopus (69) Google Scholar].In some cases, human activities disrupt a predictable environmental pattern or dynamic. Our knowledge of how this impacts animal movement, however, remains limited. For example, the spatially uneven rate of climate warming across the globe is thought to disrupt bird migrations if they experience a greater rate of wa