Spatial signatures of group cohesion

Wildlife populations are undergoing unprecedented changes to their spatial distributions as a result of human activities. Innovative approaches are needed to document these changes, especially in cases where sampling is sparse.

Here, we contribute to the tools available in spatial ecology by developing novel metrics based on the coefficient of variation (CV) applied to location data to help characterize population spatial structure. These threshold‐free methods distinguish between population elongation and fragmentation using simple summary statistics.

Simulations confirm the analytical results and demonstrate robustness across diverse scenarios, with reasonable power to detect trends even with small sample sizes. An R package ( shapeshiftr ) implementation makes these tools more widely accessible.

By characterizing the spatial distribution of individuals, these tools allow space use to be readily compared across time and species and provide early warning signals of population fragmentation.