Minimum reporting standards can promote animal welfare and data quality in biologging research

Abstract

Biologging best practices have been carefully considered since the field’s inception six decades ago. The biologging research community has reduced instrument impacts on study animals by miniaturizing devices, employing sophisticated release mechanisms, and developing novel technological advancements. However, the field still needs standardized best practices for balancing data quality and animal welfare across the scientific process, from design to deployment to reporting. We developed a set of guidelines by reviewing over 150 recent biologging impact studies for instrument characteristics and effects on animal physiology, behavior, and/or demography. From these studies, we distilled eight best practices that can be used by biologging researchers, with a particular focus on minimum reporting standards as a low-cost, high-impact way to promote animal welfare and data quality. We present three scenarios to demonstrate how reporting instrument, data, and animal characteristics can reduce instrument impacts, support future meta-analyses, and facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations. Finally, we summarize the state of knowledge surrounding the impacts of biologging instruments to animals and data. Adopting standardized guidelines for instrumentation best practices is a crucial step towards ensuring that future biologging efforts minimize impacts on animal physiology, behavior, and demography - the very biological metrics our instruments are meant to measure.