Fig. 1

A graphical depiction of a hierarchical path-segmentation (HPS) formulation that classifies segments of the lifetime tracks of individuals at four biologically relevant scales. The indicated time scales on the horizontal axis at the top of the diagram are mostly applicable to medium and large terrestrial animals, but need to be adjusted for some aerial and marine species, small vertebrates, and invertebrates. Round (blue), triangular (yellow to orange), square (green), pentagonal (red), and hexagonal (grey) icons are, respectively, used to represent \(N_1\) FuME types, \(N_2\) CAM types, \(N_3\) DAR types, \(N_4\) LiMP types, and an open-ended number of n LiT types (one for the lifetime of each movement group type to which an individual can belong). Horizontal whiskers on icons represent variations in the length of examples of the same type within a category. Only DARs have fixed duration. Vertical whiskers indicate some building-block variation within the same type, except for FuMEs which are much more stereotyped, and hence much less variable within types than other segmentation categories. Color shades within categories represent different types within those categories. Colorless strings of icons indicate how each category can be considered as a string of the next lower category elements (i.e., shapes and general color denote hierarchical level, while different shades of the same color indicate within level variation). Because FuMEs are hard to identify using relocation data only, a hierarchical segmentation of lifetime tracks will typically be supported by a statistically defined metaFuME baseset rather than by a set of FuMEs themselves