Making Tags Less of a Drag: Optimising Biologging Devices with Computational Fluid Dynamics

Posted on September 10, 2019 by India Stephenson

Post provided by WILLIAM KAY

Drag and Biologging Devices

A harbour seal tagged with a biologging device. ©Dr Abbo van Neer

Michael Phelps is one of the most decorated Olympic athletes of all time and the world’s fastest swimmer. And yet, he could swim faster. Wearing the Speedo LZR Racer supersuit Michael Phelps could reduce his hydrodynamic drag, or water resistance, by upwards of 40%. That could increase his swim speed by more than 4%! In competition, that’s the difference between silver and gold. But, if Phelps forgot to remove his “drag socks” – cumbersome footwear designed to increase water resistance for strength training – his speed would be dramatically reduced. He’d be lucky to walk away with bronze!

Professional swimmers have adapted to the use of performance enhancing technologies to decrease their drag, but that’s nothing compared to the adaptations made by wild animals. Creatures in the marine environment have evolved incredible adaptations to decrease drag, such as extreme streamlining in marine mammals and seabirds. This allows them to move underwater as quickly and efficiently as possible. Seals, for example, are pretty ungainly on land, but in the water they’re sleek and rapid. They have a body shape designed to maximise speed while swimming.

When we study marine animals we often use tracking devices, which can be attached using harnesses, glue, or suction-cups. These ‘biologging devices‘, or tags, are similar to Fitbits. Attaching them to animals allows us to record, amongst other things, all of the animal’s movements and behaviours. This information is crucial to understanding their ecology and for improving their conservation management. Continue reading →

Bringing Movement Ecologists and Remote Sensing Experts Together: Seeing the World through Each Other’s Eyes with rsMove

Posted on September 6, 2019 by India Stephenson

Post provided by RUBEN REMELGADO

“Man must rise above Earth to the top of the atmosphere and beyond, for only then will he fully understand the world in which he lives” – Socrates (469-399 BC)

Since the launch of the first Landsat mission in 1972, several new earth observation satellites made their way into Earth’s orbit. As of 2018, UNOOSA recorded an impressive 1980 active satellites. Of those, 661 were dedicated to earth observation. These numbers show how widespread the use of remote sensing technologies has become.

As space agencies recognised the scientific and economic value of satellite data, they made it open access. By doing so, they gave the scientific community the means to develop a growing variety of spatially explicit – and often temporally dynamic – data products on both the land and the atmosphere. Over the years, those of us studying movement ecology have greatly profited from it. Continue reading →

Stereo DOV: A Non-Invasive, Non-Destructive Way to Study Fish Populations

Posted on June 13, 2019 by India Stephenson

It’s more important than ever for us to have accurate information to help marine conservation efforts. Jordan Goetze and his colleagues have provided the first comprehensive guide for researchers using diver operated stereo-video methods (or stereo-DOVs) to survey fish assemblages and their associated habitat.

But what is Stereo DOV? What makes it a better method than the traditional UVC (Underwater Visual Census) method? And when should you use it? Find out in this video:

To find out more about stereo DOVs, read the full Methods in Ecology and Evolution article ‘A field and video analysis guide for diver operated stereo‐video‘
(No Subscription Required).

If you’re using interesting new field techniques like this, why not submit a Practical Tools manuscript about them? You can find out more about Practical Tools manuscripts here.

Assessing Sea Turtle Populations: Can We Get a Hand From Drones and Deep Learning?

Posted on May 23, 2019 by India Stephenson

Post provided by PATRICK GRAY

An olive ridley sea turtle in Ostional, Costa Rica. ©Vanessa Bézy.

Understanding animal movement and population size is a challenge for researchers studying any megafauna species. Sea turtles though, add a whole additional level of complexity. These wide-ranging, swift, charismatic animals spend much of their time underwater and in remote places. When trying to track down and count turtles, this obstacle to understanding population size becomes a full-on barricade.

Censusing these animals doesn’t just satisfy our scientific curiosity. It’s critical for understanding the consequences of unsound fishing practices, the benefits of conservation policy, and overall trends in population health for sea turtles, of which, six out of seven species range from vulnerable to critically endangered. Continue reading →

Where do Animals Spend Their Time and Energy? Theory, Simulations and GPS Trackers Can Help Us Find Out

Posted on May 22, 2019 by India Stephenson

Post provided by MATT MALISHEV (@DARWINANDDAVIS)

An adult sleepy lizard with a GPS tracker and body temperature logger strapped to her tail. ©Mike Bull.

Changes in temperature and available food determine where and when animals move, reproduce, and survive. Our understanding of how environmental change impacts biodiversity and species survival is well-established at the landscape, country and global scales. But, we know less about what could happen at finer space and time scales, such as within habitats, where behavioural responses by animals are crucial for daily survival.

Simulating Movement and Daily Survival with Individual-Based Movement Models

Key questions at these scales are how the states of individuals (things like body temperature and nutritional condition) influence movement decisions in response to habitat change, and how these decisions relate to patchiness in microclimates and food. So we need tools to make reliable forecasts of how fine-scale habitat use will change under future environments. Individual-based movement simulation models are powerful tools for these kinds of studies. They let you construct habitats that vary in temperature and food conditions in both space and time and ask ‘what if’ questions. By populating these models with activity, behaviour, and movement data of animals, we can simulate different habitat conditions and predict how animals will respond to future change. Continue reading →

Issue 10.5: Movement Ecology, Palaeobiology, Monitoring and More

Posted on May 2, 2019 by India Stephenson

The May issue of Methods is now online!

The May issue of Methods in Ecology and Evolution is absolutely packed! We’ve got a new ecoacoustics method from Metcalf et al. and a new inference and forecasting method from Cenci et al. There’s also a forum article on image analysis, and papers on physiology, palaeobiology, capture-recapture and much more. We’ve got SIX papers that are freely available to absolutely everyone this month too.

Find out a little more about the new issue of Methods in Ecology and Evolution (including details about what the diver is doing to the coral in the cover image) below. Continue reading →

How Can Understanding Animal Behaviour Help Support Wildlife Conservation?

Posted on April 10, 2019 by India Stephenson

Below is a press release about the Methods in Ecology and Evolution article ‘A novel biomechanical approach for animal behaviour recognition using accelerometers‘ taken from the EPFL.

©Arpat Ozgul, University of Zurich

Researchers from EPFL and the University of Zurich have developed a model that uses data from sensors worn by meerkats to gain a more detailed picture of how animals behave in the wild.

Advancement in sensor technologies has meant that field biologists are now collecting a growing mass of ever more precise data on animal behaviour. Yet there is currently no standardised method for determining exactly how to interpret these signals. Take meerkats, for instance. A signal that the animal is active could mean that it is moving; alternatively, it could indicate that it is digging in search of its favourite prey, scorpions. Likewise, an immobile meerkat could be resting – or keeping watch.

In an effort to answer these questions, researchers from EPFL’s School of Engineering Laboratory of Movement Analysis and Measurement (LMAM) teamed up with colleagues from the University of Zurich’s Population Ecology Research Group to develop a behavior recognition model. The research was conducted in affiliation with the Kalahari Research Centre. Continue reading →

Animal Social Networks: Joint Special Feature Open Call

Posted on March 26, 2019 by India Stephenson

Zebras and giraffes walking. Photo by Kirsty Lucas.

The recent focus on the study of animal social networks has led to some fundamental new insights. These have spanned across fields in ecology and evolution, ranging from epidemiology and learning through to evolution and conservation. Whilst network analysis has been used to address questions about sociality, food webs, bipartite networks and more over the past decade it is now extending into a wider variety of fields such as network interconnection and the link between gene networks and the expression of adaptive behaviours.

Graph theoreticians and biologists also are continuously developing novel network analytical approaches, opening new avenues of study and thereby extending our knowledge on many biological aspects of animal behaviour and interactions. This synergy between the development of new techniques and their application within a wider diversity of disciplines and animal models is providing a solid framework for studying animal sociality. However, as with all new research directions, growing knowledge has come with many new questions and new analytical challenges.

Here at Methods in Ecology & Evolution and the Journal of Animal Ecology we are excited by the new directions that the next decade of research into animal social networks will bring. We hope to encourage new advances in the study of animal social networks by calling for high-quality papers for a cross-journal Special Feature on animal social networks. The aim of this Special Feature is to bring together researchers from different fields and working with a diversity of biological models to showcase new network techniques and how they are integrated into general analytical frameworks.

The Special Feature is intended to provide the readership with a cross-disciplinary overview of state-of-the-art tools for network analyses in animal research and promote their application and new development for the decades to come. It was proposed by Sebastian Sosa, Mathieu Lihoreau, David Jacoby and Cédric Sueur.

Social network visualization. Photo by Martin Grandjean CC-SA.

We are soliciting original research capturing novel methodological developments or applications of social network theory to new empirical questions. These papers should address outstanding questions in fields that include (but are not restricted to) evolutionary ecology, behavioural ecology, disease and parasite biology, wildlife conservation, and theory.

Joint Special Feature Details

Manuscripts should be submitted in the usual way through the Journal of Animal Ecology or Methods in Ecology and Evolution websites. Submissions should clearly state in the cover letter accompanying the submission that you wish the manuscript to be considered for publication as part of this Special Feature. Pre-submission enquiries are not necessary, but any questions can be directed to: admin@journalofanimalecology.org or coordinator@methodsinecologyandevolution.org

The deadline for submission is: ~~Monday 26 August~~.

The NEW submission deadline is: Friday 27 September

Damien Farine and the Guest Editors have reviewed some areas of animal social network research that deserve particular attention.

Quantifying Animal Movement from Videos

Posted on March 6, 2019 by India Stephenson

Quantifying animal movement is central to research spanning a variety of topics. It’s an important area of study for behavioural ecologists, evolutionary biologists, ecotoxicologists and many more. There are a lot of ways to track animals, but they’re often difficult, especially for people who don’t have a strong background in programming.

Vivek Hari Sridhar, Dominique G. Roche and Simon Gingins have developed a new, simple software to help with this though: Tracktor. This package provides researchers with a free, efficient, markerless video-based tracking solution to analyse animal movement of single individuals and groups.

Vivek and Simon explain the features and strengths of Tracktor in this new video:

Read the full Methods in Ecology and Evolution article ‘Tracktor: Image‐based automated tracking of animal movement and behaviour‘
(No Subscription Required).

Download and start using Tracktor via GitHub.

Field Work on a Shoestring: Using Consumer Technology as an Early Career Researcher

Posted on February 22, 2019 by India Stephenson

Post provided by CARLOS A. DE LA ROSA

Esta entrada de blog también está disponible en español

Champagne Tastes on a Beer Budget

Freshly outfitted with a VACAMS camera and GPS unit, #1691 heads off into the forest with her calf. ©Carlos A. de la Rosa

There’s a frustrating yin and yang to biological research: motivated by curiosity and imagination, we often find ourselves instead defined by limitations. Some of these are fundamental human conditions. The spectrum of light detectable by human eyes, for example, means we can never see a flower the way a bee sees it. Others limitations, like funding and time, are realities of modern-day social and economic systems.

Early career researchers (ECRs) starting new projects and delving into new research systems must be especially creative to overcome the odds. Large grants can be transformative, giving a research group the equipment and resources to complete a study, but they’re tough to get. Inexperienced ECRs are at a disadvantage when competing against battle-hardened investigators with years of grant writing experience. Small grants of up to about $5000 USD, on the other hand, are comparatively easy to find. So, how can ECRs make the most of small, intermittent sources of funding?

I found myself faced with this question in the second year of my PhD field work. Continue reading →

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Tag Archives: Behavioural Ecology