Understanding animal movement is at the core of ecology, evolution and conservation science. Big data approaches for animal tracking have facilitated impactful synthesis research on spatial biology and behavior in ecologically important and human-impacted regions. Similarly, databases of animal traits (e.g. body size, limb length, locomotion method, lifespan) have been used for a wide range of comparative questions, with emerging data being shared at the level of individuals and populations. Here, we argue that the proliferation of both types of publicly available data creates exciting opportunities to unlock new avenues of research, such as spatial planning and ecological forecasting. We assessed the feasibility of combining animal tracking and trait databases to develop and test hypotheses across geographic, temporal and biological allometric scales. We identified multiple research questions addressing performance and distribution constraints that could be answered by integrating trait and tracking data. For example, how do physiological (e.g. metabolic rates) and biomechanical traits (e.g. limb length, locomotion form) influence migration distances? We illustrate the potential of our framework with three case studies that effectively integrate trait and tracking data for comparative research. An important challenge ahead is the lack of taxonomic and spatial overlap in trait and tracking databases. We identify critical next steps for future integration of tracking and trait databases, with the most impactful being open and interlinked individual-level data. Coordinated efforts to combine trait and tracking databases will accelerate global ecological and evolutionary insights and inform conservation and management decisions in our changing world.

Department of Biological Sciences Goethe University 60323 Frankfurt am Main Germany

Department of Biology University of Konstanz 78464 Konstanz Germany

Department of Biology University of North Carolina at Greensboro Greensboro NC 27412 USA

Department of Biology University of Oxford Oxford OX1 3RB UK

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology University of California Santa Cruz Santa Cruz CA 95064 USA

Department of Migration Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior 78315 Radolfzell Konstanz Germany

Department of Spatial Sciences Faculty of Environmental Sciences Czech University of Life Sciences Prague 165 00 Praha Suchdol Czech Republic

Institute of Marine Sciences University of California Santa Cruz Santa Cruz CA 95064 USA

School for Environment and Sustainability University of Michigan Ann Arbor MI 48109 USA

Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre 60325 Frankfurt am Main Germany

The University Centre in Svalbard Longyearbyen 9170 Svalbard Norway

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