Conserving habitat for migratory ungulates: how wide is a migration corridor?

Conserving migratory ungulates relies on the analysis of GPS collar data and associated maps of migration corridors to inform management and policy actions. Current methods for identifying migratory corridors use complex statistical models designed to account for movement uncertainty rather than estimating the amount of space required by animals to migrate. Further, such methods can complicate conservation efforts by producing highly variable corridor widths and non-contiguous corridors that do not fully connect seasonal ranges.
To remedy this, we propose an intuitive line buffer approach for delineating individual migration corridors that is simple to implement and focuses on the functional corridor widths needed by migratory ungulates. 
By buffering a line that connects successive GPS locations, we can delineate individual migration corridors with consistent widths that are robust to variable parameters (GPS fix-rate, travel speed, tortuosity) and provide contiguous connection betwee..., We collected 10-min data from GPS collars (model G5-D; Advanced Telemetry Systems, Isanti, MN) for a single spring migration in 2022 from 2 female mule deer and 2 female pronghorn in Wyoming, USA. Animals were captured using a netgun shot from a helicopter in March 2022 following capture and handling methods approved by the University of Wyoming Animal Care and Use Committee (protocols 20200302MK00411-01 and 20210301MK00461-02) and Wyoming Department of Game and Fish (permits 33-937 and 33-1162). , The dataset is a comma-delimited file with 5 columns and 6,444 rows. The species column represents either mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) or pronghorn (Antilocapra americana). The id column represents a unique animal id. The x and y columns represent easting and northing of the relocations in ESPG: 5072. The date column represents the date and time (in 'Year-Month-Day Hour:Minute:Second' format) of the relocation in local time (MST or MDT). The dataset is only the 10-min relocation data from the 4 animals during their spring migration in 2022. Note that these data do not encompass the entire spring migration of these animals, as we remotely programmed the collars (which have a delay of a day or two) to collect 10-min data after they seemingly began migrating.Â