Announcing version 5 of Fractal, a program to analyze movement paths of animals. Fractal does the following: 1. Estimates fractal dimension (D) using the basic divider method (as introduced by Mandelbrot). 2. Estimates fractal D, using a resampling version of the divider method, which also estimates fractal D as a function of scale. 3. Calculates the VFractal estimator, which estimates fractal D as a function of scale but which also provides error estimates (Nams, 1996: Landscape Ecology 11:289-297). 4. Estimates an alternate version of fractal D as a function of scale, that provides error estimate for individual movement paths (Nams 2004: Can J Zool 82:1738-1747). 5. Estimates Net distance2 travelled as a function of number of steps, and uses this for a statistical test for deviations from a CRW model (Nams, V.O. and M. Bourgeois 2005, Oecologia in press). 6. Carries out the scaling test for oriented movement - this is used to test whether a movement path is oriented (Nams, V.O. 2006 , Animal Behaviour. 72: 1197-1203). 7. Transforms movement paths by discretizing or rotating them. This program can be downloaded for free from: http://www.nsac.ca/envsci/staff/vnams/ Vilis Nams
