Data collection and storage in long-term ecological and evolutionary studies: The Mongoose 2000 system

Harry H Marshall; David J Griffiths; Francis Mwanguhya; Robert Businge; Amber G F Griffiths; Solomon Kyabulima; Kenneth Mwesige; Jennifer L Sanderson; Faye J Thompson; Emma I K Vitikainen; Michael A Cant

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0190740

Data collection and storage in long-term ecological and evolutionary studies: The Mongoose 2000 system

PLoS One. 2018 Jan 9;13(1):e0190740. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0190740. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Cornwall, United Kingdom.
² Centre for Research in Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour, University of Roehampton, London, United Kingdom.
³ FoAM Kernow, Jubilee Warehouse, Penryn, Cornwall, United Kingdom.
⁴ Banded Mongoose Research Project, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Kasese District, Rubirizi, Uganda.
⁵ Department of Biosciences, University of Helsinki, Helinski, Finland.

Abstract

Studying ecological and evolutionary processes in the natural world often requires research projects to follow multiple individuals in the wild over many years. These projects have provided significant advances but may also be hampered by needing to accurately and efficiently collect and store multiple streams of the data from multiple individuals concurrently. The increase in the availability and sophistication of portable computers (smartphones and tablets) and the applications that run on them has the potential to address many of these data collection and storage issues. In this paper we describe the challenges faced by one such long-term, individual-based research project: the Banded Mongoose Research Project in Uganda. We describe a system we have developed called Mongoose 2000 that utilises the potential of apps and portable computers to meet these challenges. We discuss the benefits and limitations of employing such a system in a long-term research project. The app and source code for the Mongoose 2000 system are freely available and we detail how it might be used to aid data collection and storage in other long-term individual-based projects.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Biological Evolution*
Computers
Data Collection
Databases, Factual
Ecosystem*
Environmental Monitoring / methods*
Female
Herpestidae
Humans
Male
Pregnancy
Smartphone
Uganda

Grants and funding

This research was funded by a European Research Council Starting Grant (309249) and Natural Environment Research Council (UK) Standard Grant (NE/J010278/1). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.