Inter-location Measures

This allows you to calculate simple measures between locations or groups of locations. You need to load a location file, choose a measure, select between which locations you want that to be calculated and then press the ‘Run location analysis’ button. The analysis will run – producing a summary of its progress and output the results to a file. What happens after the run is finished depends on the options you have selected.

If you select first to last or a location interval other than 1 then the output file will be displayed in the stats viewer.

For other options, after running the analysis a plot for the first range will appear in a separate window, and the user interface will switch to Input & Graphics and display the location file with an extra column added containing the newly calculated attribute. To show later ranges in the plot, select them in the Ranges table. The currently selected location in the Locations table is displayed in red in the plot. Running subsequent analyses on the same file will result in multiple plot windows which can be viewed at the same time. This helps to discover how and when a juvenile disperses or an animal migrates, whether the distance moved is constant all day etc.

Headings

Results are given as headings in 360 degrees, between a user-defined number of locations.

Distances

Results are given in metres either between locations, or from a focal site (e.g. a nest) to the location. When focal site to location is selected for distances the Dispersal detection option is enabled.

Times

Note that this option is only enabled if your input file has location qualifying variables defining times for each location (these must have labels containing combinations of YY, MO, DD, HH, MI, SS). Results are given in minutes.

Speeds

Note that this option is only enabled if your input file has [[File Types#Location Qualifying Variables|location qualifying variables] defining times for each location (these must have labels containing combinations of YY, MO, DD, HH, MI, SS). Results are given in metres per hour.

Between Which Locations

span first to last

Calculate the chosen metric between the first and last location of each range. The value calculated is the sum of the result between each consecutive location in the range (with the exception of headings, which just calculates the heading between the first and last locations).

location interval

Allows you to input the location interval between which the metric is calculated. Entering 1 will result in calculations being made between all locations. For values greater than 1 the result will be the sum of the calculation between each consecutive location, e.g. if locations were taken at hourly intervals, a location interval of 24 could be used to estimate the daily distance moved.

focal site to location

Calculate the chosen metric between the focal site and each location. This option is not offered for times and speeds because the focal site doesn’t have an associated time value.

When focal site to location is selected for distances the Dispersal detection option is enabled.