Cape Buffalo GPS Locations and Contact Patterns from Two African Populations

GPS locations recorded every hour from female Cape buffalo in two southern African populations, Kruger National Park and Okavango Delta. The dataset supports analyses of inter-group social behavior and pathogen transmission risk. Data was collected by Elodie Wielgus, with monitoring periods from 2007–2010 in the Okavango Delta and 2010–2015 in Kruger National Park.

Use Cases

• Modeling pathogen transmission risk based on inter-group contact patterns derived from GPS data.
• Analyzing social network structures within and between Cape buffalo herds using proximity data.
• Studying movement ecology and home range dynamics of Cape buffalo across two distinct African ecosystems.

Strengths

• Data spans two distinct populations over multiple years (KNP: 2010–2015, OD: 2007–2010), enabling comparative analysis.
• Hourly GPS resolution provides detailed temporal tracking of individual movement and potential contacts.
• Includes 5 data files intended to reproduce published analyses, suggesting a degree of validation.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale modeling.
• Data is limited to female Cape buffalo, which may not represent full herd dynamics.

Provenance

Source

Elodie Wielgus via figshare.

Collection Method

Data derived from GPS collars on female Cape buffalo.

Time Range

Okavango Delta: 2007–2010; Kruger National Park: 2010–2015.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-28 16:59:07; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Kruger National Park, South Africa, and Okavango Delta, Botswana.