Abstract Animal-borne tri-axial accelerometers are increasingly used to investigate animal behaviour and energetics. Critical methodological details, such as device placement and dynamic range, are frequently underreported. This lack of reporting hampers study replicability and interpretation of results. It also complicates comparisons between studies. In addition, as device placement and attachment method can impact animal welfare and survival, transparent reporting should be considered vital for ethical publication. In this comment, we highlight these issues through a review of methodological reporting in studies involving attaching accelerometers to sea turtles. To address these challenges, we propose a framework for minimum standardised reporting that outlines key metadata which researchers should include when publishing studies utilizing animal-borne accelerometers. We also recommend thorough testing of devices and attachment methods prior to their use in the field. Adoption of this framework will enhance transparency, reproducibility, and comparability across studies, while promoting best practices in animal welfare.
Common minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata; hereafter, “minke whales”) are globally distributed, but can exhibit cryptic behavior and sometimes occur in small groups, and are thus challenging to study. Like other baleen whales, this species makes seasonal migrations. However, aspects of their movement and behavioral patterns are not well understood. The Mid-Atlantic Bight (MAB), situated along the eastern coast of the United States, is a known migratory route for minke whales, but earlier observations suggest this area may also serve as foraging grounds despite various natural and anthropogenic stressors. We deployed three satellite tags on minke whales, including two in the New York Bight (NYB) in September 2023 and one off of Virginia (VA) in February 2024, to characterize movement patterns in and around the MAB. These tags yield the first record of minke whale movements in this area and the first dive record for minke whales in the broader northwest Atlantic. The animals showed two types of movement, area restricted search (ARS) and transit, likely reflecting foraging and migratory behavior, respectively. In the NYB, we found evidence of ARS in mid-shelf waters, including in offshore wind lease areas. In VA coastal waters, ARS was documented in and around shipping lanes. We also found evidence of southward migration in autumn, with one animal exhibiting a shift from ARS to sustained transitory movements in late October. In the NYB, the whales exhibited strong diel trends in diving behavior, but this was not observed for the individual off VA. These data provide initial quantification of minke whale behavior and habitat use in the MAB, including in areas that overlap with anthropogenic activities, providing insight for further research, management and conservation.
Animal-borne cameras integrated with multi-sensor devices offer a powerful tool for hypothesis-driven research. Video recordings enable ground-truth validation of behavioral modes inferred from triaxial accelerometer data in wild animals. However, retrieving video data can be challenging due to battery limitations and the lack of remote download stations. We tested a GPS-accelerometer device integrated with a customized camera and a harness drop-off system on two adult King Vultures (Sarcoramphus papa), an elusive Neotropical scavenger. Video recordings from animal-borne cameras were used to establish behavioral reference annotations, which were temporally aligned with accelerometer data and compared against the output of a Self-Organizing Map algorithm to validate behavioral classification performance. Model performance was evaluated using precision, recall, and F1-score metrics. Prototypes were successfully deployed, yielding a total of 764 video files and 2 h 16 min of footage for ground-truth validation. Five to six behavioral modes were identified per individual and matched with accelerometer data. Resting was the most common behavior (59.2–69.9
Abstract Background Quantifying the patterns and drivers of animal movement is critical to the effective conservation and management of species across all ecosystems. Despite their importance for global commercial and recreational fisheries, the movement patterns of marine soft sediment associated fishes are poorly understood. This study provides an important assessment of the characteristics of fine-scale movement patterns for a soft sediment fish species, the bluespotted flathead ( Platycephalus caeruleopunctatus ), and evaluates a suite of 8 environmental factors as potential drivers of these movements. Using a fine-scale acoustic positioning system, we tracked the movements of 46 bluespotted flathead over 472 days within the soft sediment marine habitat of Jervis Bay Marine Park. Results We found that tagged individuals exhibited directed movements within small areas, challenging the prevailing assumptions regarding the movement patterns of soft sediment fishes. The speed and space use associated with these movements were influenced by sea surface temperature, atmospheric pressure, wind speed, wind direction, time of day, and time of year. Fish length, rainfall, and wave height had no detectable influence on impact fish movements. Conclusions We offer an important insight into directed movement in an understudied group of marine fishes. Our results highlight the need for further research into the combined effect of environmental and ecological drivers of movement in soft sediment habitats.
Traditional methods for determining birth timing and subsequent habitat information of ungulates can be costly, time-consuming, or can potentially negatively affect parturient females. Identifying ungulate birth sites and timing of births is possible using movement data from global positioning systems (GPS) collars. We investigated whether we could estimate parturition in Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis canadensis) using the analysis of parturition indicators (API) (i.e., velocity, turning angle, and seasonal range size) approach. These types of movement-based methods can be used to accurately detect parturition. We determined birthdates of young Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep through consistent, visual monitoring of collared females on Antelope Island, Utah, USA, from 2020 to 2022. We then used step length, velocity, turning angle, and seasonal range size collected from GPS collars to estimate 19 birthing events from 13 females for which we observed parturition within 72 h. Parturition of 13 female bighorn sheep was identified by a step length of < 95 m, a velocity of < 0.05 km/h, a turning angle of > 1.8 radians, and a seasonal range of < 8 ha. We then applied those metrics to verify 34 birthdates of all female bighorn sheep. Step length and the API method predicted a combined cumulation of 19
