Methods and applications for assessing recursive behavior in wildlife and livestock tracking datasets

Abstract Recursive movements, characterized by repeated returns to previously visited locations or areas, are a fundamental component of animal movement ecology, yet they remain underutilized in ecological analyses despite their potential applications. In response, we leveraged location data from Carmen Mountain white-tailed deer ( Odocoileus virginianus carminis ) and Rocky Mountain elk ( Cervus canadensis nelsoni ) in Coahuila, Mexico, a collared peccary ( Pecari tajacu ) in southern Texas, and a cow ( Bos taurus ) in Oklahoma to demonstrate applications of recursive behavior in wildlife and livestock tracking studies. We also present an iterative moving-window framework that incorporates temporal directionality into recursion analyses. Application of this framework revealed a mobile movement strategy, characterized by frequent movements between ranges, in male yearling Carmen Mountain white-tailed deer during spring and autumn, and provided evidence that penned conspecifics may be an effective mechanism for increasing short-term post-release site fidelity in elk. Our approach also showed that a collared peccary repeatedly revisited multiple daytime bedding sites while exhibiting variable residence times, potentially reflecting a hub-and-satellite structure of bedding sites. Finally, we observed substantial seasonal variation in the spatial distribution of grazing intensity in a cow, highlighting opportunities to improve pasture management for livestock producers. Collectively, these findings demonstrate the value of recursive movement metrics for revealing ecological patterns. We encourage researchers to incorporate recursive movement analyses into broader movement ecology frameworks to improve understanding of ecological processes, including social dynamics, habitat selection, pasture utilization, dispersal, migration, and site selection for behaviors such as bedding, resting, and parturition, among other applications.