This kicked off a long tradition of what Nathan dubbed "movement ecology" research.
But over the years, he said, researchers focused on specific types of movement in certain groups of species, rather than coming up with a unifying theme.
"They never meet each other, they never talk to each other, they never go to the same conference, they publish in different journals," Nathan said.
In an effort to bring the scientific community together, Nathan led a year-long project to establish a unifying framework, or paradigm, for movement ecology research.
Twelve teams of scientists were asked to address four basic questions: why, how, where, and when organisms move.
The framework, Nathan said, applies to all types of organisms, from animals such as salmon, sea turtles, and elephants, to bacteria and plants.
He introduces the paradigm in the PNAS package, which includes the results from 12 teams.
"If you give a legitimate field for the study of movement itself ... then people will study movement-related questions more thoroughly," Nathan said.
Martin Wikelski is a zoologist at the Max Planck Institute of Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany, who specializes in animal movement.
He said the initiative to raise the prominence of movement ecology is "absolutely essential" to the understanding of wild animals, especially in an era complicated by a changing climate.
"Every animal moves around and if we don't know the fate of these animals during movement, and how movement contributes to selection, then I think we are pretty much lost," he said.
Birds and Bees
James Mandel, an ecologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, said the new paradigm is ideal for his research, which seeks to unify weather patterns with animal movement.
His team outfitted turkey vultures with satellite-reporting GPS tags and two-way radio transmitters to collect data on the birds' hourly and daily movements.
One turkey vulture even carried a heart rate monitor to get a measure for how much energy it expended during flight.
The researchers coupled this data with information on the wind speed, atmospheric turbulence, and cloud height wherever the birds were.
The team found that turkey vultures soar from one billowing updraft of warm air to the next as they migrate thousands of miles between their summer and winter homes.
While many questions remain, Mandel said the data indicate the birds "are highly dependent on favorable weather conditions from energy source to energy source as they go."
Other teams applied the movement ecology framework to the study of elephants in Africa, elks in Canada, lynx in Spain, and butterflies from Estonia, Finland, and China.
Yet other groups tested it on seeds in Panama and various other plants in the eastern U.S.
The Max Planck Institute's Wikelski, who is also a 2008 National Geographic Emerging Explorer (the National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News), is pioneering new tracking technology that allows scientists to study the movement of even the smallest creatures, such as bees.
(Related story: Tiny Radio Tags Offer Rare Glimpse into Bees' Universe [November 14, 2008].)
He said the combination of Nathan's movement ecology initiative and new technologies will open "a new era in biology."
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