TRACKING LITERATURE
The Tracking Literature library gathers research on tracks and signs, trailing, and animal behaviour and ecology, together with related fields such as human tracking, forensics, ichnology and taphonomy. Behaviour and natural history papers are here even when they never mention tracking, because understanding behaviour matters to trackers.
Search every field, or narrow the list with the filters. Each paper has its own page with a synopsis, keywords and the full citation. Where a paper is open access, or the authors or publisher have given permission, you can download the PDF; otherwise the page links to the publisher or a legal free copy.
2012PDF available
Multitaxonomic Diversity Patterns along a Desert Riparian–Upland Gradient
Do riverside habitats really hold more life than the desert around them? Along Arizona’s San Pedro River, researchers combined surveys of 11 groups, from spiders and scarab beetles to birds and carnivores counted by their tracks. Each group told a different story, but together the riverside held more species and more animals, and the river and desert each had their own distinct mix.
2012Publisher link
Pine marten (Martes martes) distribution and abundance in Ireland: A cross-jurisdictional analysis using non-invasive genetic survey techniques
By walking over 1200 km of forest trails and DNA-testing the scats they found, researchers mapped pine martens across the whole island of Ireland for the first time. Martens have spread widely in the Republic over 30 years, to an estimated 2740 animals, but Northern Ireland holds only about 320, still clustered in the west.
2012Publisher link
Selective feeding by a megaherbivore, the African elephant (Loxodonta africana)
Are elephants the least fussy eaters in the bush? By following fresh elephant feeding tracks across Botswana’s Chobe sandveld for a year, researchers found that elephants ignore many common trees, but in the hot dry season eat almost every part of the shrubs they do choose: stems, bark and even roots. This sets them apart from giraffe, kudu and impala.
2012Publisher link
Slithering Locomotion
How does a snake move forward with no legs and nothing to push against? Using corn snakes and milk snakes, a computer model and some slippery table tops, the authors show that belly scales grip sideways better than forwards, and that slithering snakes lift parts of their body to press harder where it counts. On a smooth surface, a snake can slither all it likes and go nowhere.
2012PDF available
Table Scraps: Inter-Trophic Food Provisioning by Pumas
When a puma walks away from a kill, a whole community moves in. By following GPS-collared pumas in Chilean Patagonia to 433 kill sites, researchers estimated that each puma leaves around 172 kg of meat a month for Andean condors, foxes, caracaras and other scavengers. Per area, that is up to three times what wolves provide in Yellowstone.
2012Publisher link
Testing GIS-generated Least-cost Path Predictions for Martes pennanti (Fisher) and its Application for Identifying Mammalian Road-crossings in Northern New Hampshire
Where should a wildlife tunnel or overpass go? In northern New Hampshire, certified trackers recorded over 7000 animal tracks crossing or approaching two roads in one winter and spring, and the researchers used the fisher’s crossings to map its easiest travel routes. The predicted corridors held up for fishers and bobcats, and drew more kinds of mammals than other stretches of road, though not more black bears.
2012Publisher link
The Distribution, Habitat, Diet and Forensic Significance of the Scarab Frankenbergerius forcipatus (Harold, 1881) (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae)
What turns up at a carcass, and when, can help forensic investigators read a death scene. Researchers who left three dead dogs on hilltops near Grahamstown, South Africa, found 33 of a little-known dung beetle three weeks later, feeding on the stomach contents rather than the flesh. It is the first record of what this beetle eats, and it extends the species’ known range by about 100 km.
2012Publisher link
The plant physical features selected by wildcats as signal posts: an economic approach to fecal marking
Where a wildcat leaves their scat is no accident. In a protected area in Northwest Spain, researchers found 104 wildcat scats on plants and showed that the cats chose wide, eye-catching plants over thin grasses, likely so rivals and potential mates would find the message. DNA confirmed at least 16 different wildcats at work.
2012PDF available
The role of demographic and environmental variables on the presence of snow tracks by river otters Lontra canadensis
If a river otter is right there, will you find their tracks in the snow? Following five radio-tagged otters on frozen lakes in British Columbia, researchers found tracks far more often for males than females, and more often the farther an otter had moved. One young female left tracks at fewer than one in five of her locations, a warning that snow-track surveys can miss part of a population.
2011PDF available
A Bayesian hierarchical occupancy model for track surveys conducted in a series of linear, spatially correlated, sites
How do you count river otters you never see? Flying a helicopter along the Mississippi River after fresh snowfalls, Minnesota observers mapped otter tracks, and statisticians built a model that separates where otters live, when they leave tracks, and when observers miss or misread them. They found that three days of flights after each of at least three snowfalls gave reliable results.
2011PDF available
Badger Meles meles spatial structure and diet in an area of low earthworm biomass and high predation risk
Why do badgers in the forests of north-eastern Belarus live at densities hundreds of times lower than in Britain? Combining radio-tracking, snow-tracking and 1188 scats, researchers found badgers eating whatever was most available each season, from wild boar carcasses in the snow to frogs, beetles and berries. With wolves and lynx about, badgers stuck to straight routes between their setts, which may keep them safe but away from the best feeding spots.
2011PDF available
Brown bears possess anal sacs and secretions may code for sex
Do brown bears have scent glands under their tails? Anatomists had disagreed for decades. Researchers in Sweden checked 17 wild bears and found paired anal sacs in every one, holding a clay-like secretion of 90 compounds whose mix likely tells other bears whether a male or a female passed by.
2011Publisher link
Brown hyaenas on roads: Estimating carnivore occupancy and abundance using spatially auto-correlated sign survey replicates
How do you count a shy, mainly nocturnal scavenger across thousands of square kilometres of farmland? Researchers drove farm roads in South Africa’s North West Province looking for brown hyaena tracks and signs, and used occupancy models to estimate where the animals live and how many there are. Brown hyaenas were far more likely to be found where landowners were tolerant of carnivores and where there were wildlife farms.
2011PDF available
Can the abundance of tigers be assessed from their signs?
Can you count tigers from their pugmarks and scats? At 21 sites across India, researchers compared sign counts on 5 km walks with camera-trap counts of individually recognised tigers. Pugmarks and scats together explained about 95% of the differences in tiger density, at about 7% of the cost of camera trapping.
2011PDF available
CyberTracker: An integral management tool used by rangers in the Djelk Indigenous Protected Area, central Arnhem Land, Australia
What if every hour of a ranger’s work could be mapped? In Arnhem Land, the Djelk Rangers adopted CyberTracker, the icon-based software first built for animal trackers in Africa, and now record everything from buffalo culls and weed patches to ghost nets, turtle tracks and landowners’ instructions about sacred sites. Two years of their records show how the data help plan burns, report to Traditional Owners and even support prosecutions.
2011Publisher link
Eavesdropping of woodchucks (Marmota monax) and eastern chipmunks (Tamias striatus) on heterospecific alarm calls
When a chipmunk sounds the alarm, does the woodchuck next door listen? Playing recorded calls to marked animals in a Maine wildlife preserve, researchers found that woodchucks looked up and grew more alert at chipmunk alarm calls, but saved their strongest reactions, including running for cover, for calls from their own kind. Chipmunks seemed to listen in too, though the sample was too small to be sure.
2011Publisher link
Evaluating persistence and its predictors in a West African carnivore community
Where have the lions gone? Using cameras, tracks and scat, call-in surveys, interviews and 40 years of ranger patrol records, researchers found only 9 of 16 carnivore species still present in Ghana’s Mole National Park. Surprisingly, size and other traits did not predict which species vanished.
2011PDF available
Evaluation of attractants for non-invasive studies of Iberian carnivore communities
What smell draws in the most carnivores? Testing six scents on captive wolves, wildcats, genets, martens, badgers, polecats and foxes, researchers found that Eurasian lynx urine interested almost all of them. In the field, foxes urinated on it and martens and genets left droppings on it, suggesting that the scent of a predator or competitor invites investigation and marking rather than avoidance.
2011Publisher link
Factors Affecting Detectability of River Otters During Sign Surveys
How often do trackers walk past sign that is really there? Surveying river otter scats and footprints along 110 Kansas shorelines, researchers found that one 400 m search detected otters only about a third of the time where they were present. Mud, scat rather than tracks, longer searches and experienced observers all made otters easier to find, while observers with the same training differed more than five-fold.
2011PDF available
Feeding Habits of Sympatric Mustelids in an Agricultural Area of Hungary
What do badgers and martens eat when they share the same Hungarian farmland? Four years of scats revealed that both lived mostly on common voles and plants, badgers on maize and martens on wild fruit, with their diets overlapping by two thirds. Food was plentiful enough that they had no need to divide it up.
About the library
What is the Tracking Literature library?
A searchable collection of research papers on tracks and signs, trailing, and animal behaviour and ecology, gathered by Original Wisdom. Each paper has its own page with a plain-language summary, keywords, the full citation and a link to the paper.
Can I download the papers?
Where a paper is open access, or the authors or publisher have given permission, you can download the PDF from its page. Otherwise the page links to the publisher or to a legal free copy.
Who writes the summaries?
Kersey Lawrence of Original Wisdom summarises each paper: what the researchers did, found and concluded, how tracking was used, who did the tracking, and what it means for trackers.
How do I find papers on one species or place?
Type it in the search box, which searches every field including scientific names, or tick it in the Species or Region filter. Filters combine, so you can narrow the list to, for example, leopard papers from Botswana.
How should I cite a paper or a summary?
Each paper page gives the full citation and DOI of the original paper, and a ready-made citation for Original Wisdom's summary of it.