A practical guide to methods for attaching research devices to vultures and condors

Anderson, David H.; Arkumarev, Volen; Bildstein, Keith L.; Botha, André; Bowden, Christopher G. R.; Davies, Mary; Duriez, Olivier; Forbes, Neil; Godino, Alfonso; Green, Rhys E.; Krüger, Sonja; Lambertucci, Sergio A.; Orr-Ewing, Duncan; Parish, Chris N.; Parry-Jones, Jemima; Weston, Ewan

doi:10.17863/cam.58032

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…75 days post hatching). Transmitters were fitted in either backpack or leg-loop harness configurations [ 35 ] and weighed less than 2% of the vultures’ mass [ 36 ]. GPS data were collected during daylight time, starting an hour before sunrise and ending an hour after sunset, a time period that incorporates all of the Egyptian vultures' movements.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time constraints may pace the ontogeny of movement behaviour

et al. 2023

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During early development, juvenile animals need to acquire a diverse behavioural repertoire to interact with their environment. The ontogeny of animal behaviour, is paced by the motivation to improve, e.g. internal clocks, and limited by external constraints, e.g. weather conditions. We here evaluate how naive Egyptian vultures ( Neophron percnopterus ) improve in locomotor performance, measured as daily maximum displacement, prior to their first migration under three different time constraint regimes: we compared wild hatched vultures, migrating one month after fledging, with captive-hatched vultures, released in spring four months or in winter nine months before migration. We found that the time until migration paced the development of movement behaviour: wild birds rapidly increased displacement distances within the first two weeks after fledging, while spring and winter released vultures delayed movement increases by two and four months, respectively. Under relaxed time constraints captive-hatched vultures displayed diverse functional forms of performance enhancements and therefore great variability in individual ontogeny of movement behaviour. While weather conditions in winter could limit flight movements, some birds indeed moved immediately after their release, indicating that weather may not be limiting. Our findings promote the idea that relaxed ecological constraints could uncover hidden phenotypic flexibility in ontogeny, which could present a greater potential for adaptability under environmental change than currently expected.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time constraints may pace the ontogeny of movement behaviour

et al. 2023

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“…It could take several minutes for them all to return, with a longer delay if the flying conditions were particularly good and when birds were more motivated to remain in flight. Vultures were equipped with a high-resolution GPS logger (4 Hz, TechnoSmart, models Gipsy 1, Gipsy 5 or Axytreck) positioned at their lower back using a Teflon leg-loop harness (figure 1c, [56]). They were released in two groups of three individuals.…”

Section: (Iii) Group Flightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The use of social information in vulture flight decisions

Sassi,

Nouzières,

Scacco

et al. 2024

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Animals rely on a balance of personal and social information to decide when and where to move next in order to access a desired resource. The benefits from cueing on conspecifics to reduce uncertainty about resource availability can be rapidly overcome by the risks of within-group competition, often exacerbated toward low-ranked individuals. Being obligate soarers, relying on thermal updraughts to search for carcasses around which competition can be fierce, vultures represent ideal models to investigate the balance between personal and social information during foraging movements. Linking dominance hierarchy, social affinities and meteorological conditions to movement decisions of eight captive vultures, Gyps spp ., released for free flights in natural soaring conditions, we found that they relied on social information (i.e. other vultures using/having used the thermals) to find the next thermal updraught, especially in unfavourable flight conditions. Low-ranked individuals were more likely to disregard social cues when deciding where to go next, possibly to minimize the competitive risk of social aggregation. These results exemplify the architecture of decision-making during flight in social birds. It suggests that the environmental context, the context of risk and the social system as a whole calibrate the balance between personal and social information use.

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“…To segment vulture flight between circular soaring, linear soaring and gliding flight we first calculated turning angle and vertical speed between consecutive locations using the move R package [50]. We applied a moving window of 30 s to calculate the absolute cumulative sum of the turning angles (hereafter cumulative turning angle) and a moving window of 5 s to calculate the average vertical speed.…”

Section: Thermal Use Identificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The use of social information in vulture flight decisions

Yohan,

Basile,

Martina

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Animals rely on a balance of personal and social information to decide when and where to move next in order to access a desired resource, such as food. The benefits from cueing on conspecifics to reduce uncertainty about resources availability can be rapidly overcome by the risks of within-group competition, often exacerbated toward low-ranked individuals. Being obligate soarers, relying on thermal updrafts to search for carcasses around which competition can be fierce, vultures represent ideal models to investigate the balance between personal and social information during foraging movements. Linking dominance hierarchy, social affinities and meteorological conditions to movement decisions of eight captive vultures, Gyps spp., released for free flights in natural-like soaring conditions, we found that they relied on social information (i.e. other vultures using/having used the thermals) to find the next thermal updraft, especially in unfavourable flight conditions. Low-ranked individuals were more likely to disregard social cues when deciding where to go next, possibly to minimise the competitive risk of social aggregation. These results exemplify the architecture of decision-making during flight in social birds. It suggests that the environmental context, the context of risk and the social system as a whole calibrate the balance between personal and social information use.

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A practical guide to methods for attaching research devices to vultures and condors

Cited by 4 publications

References 3 publications

Time constraints may pace the ontogeny of movement behaviour

Time constraints may pace the ontogeny of movement behaviour

The use of social information in vulture flight decisions

The use of social information in vulture flight decisions

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