move2utils: a utility toolkit for the move2 ecosystem

move2utils enables modern, efficient animal movement analysis in R by porting core functions to the sf/terra ecosystem, replacing deprecated spatial code.

• Why it matters: Studying animal movement at the population level requires reliable, up-to-date software tools; legacy packages like move are outdated due to retired dependencies, creating a gap in analytical capabilities.
• What they did: The authors developed move2utils, an R package that provides move2-native ports of key analytical functions, preserves original C kernels, and introduces faster C implementations, along with outlier detection methods.
• The result: This toolkit facilitates robust, efficient movement analysis, demonstrated through real and synthetic data examples, and supports open-source development with comprehensive documentation and testing.