The golden age of bio‐logging: how animal‐borne sensors are advancing the frontiers of ecology

Abstract

Abstract. Great leaps forward in scientific understanding are often spurred by innovations in technology. The explosion of miniature sensors that are driving the boom in consumer electronics, such as smart phones, gaming platforms, and wearable fitness devices, are now becoming available to ecologists for remotely monitoring the activities of wild animals. While half a century ago researchers were attaching balloons to the backs of seals to measure their movement, today ecologists have access to an arsenal of sensors that can continuously measure most aspects of an animal's state (e.g., location, behavior, caloric expenditure, interactions with other animals) and external environment (e.g., temperature, salinity, depth). This technology is advancing our ability to study animal ecology by allowing researchers to (1) answer questions about the physiology, behavior, and ecology of wild animals in situ that would have previously been limited to tests on model organisms in highly controlled settings, (2) study cryptic or wide-ranging animals that have previously evaded investigation, and (3) develop and test entirely new theories. Here we explore how ecologists are using these tools to answer new questions about the physiological performance, energetics, foraging, migration, habitat selection, and sociality of wild animals, as well as collect data on the environments in which they live.

Pop-up satellite archival tag (PSAT) temporal data resolution affects interpretations of spawning behaviour of a commercially important teleost

“…This research adds new information, technology and techniques to the growing scientific bases that both highlight applications of telemetric research in aquatic systems [46,47], and also the technical constraints on electronic tag data reporting [15], transmission to satellites [13,16], and general performance related to deriving some data [2]. It has recently been stated that now is the golden age of animal-borne sensors due largely to technological innovations and their applications to ecological research [47]. Our research illustrates both the constraints inherent in electronic tagging data that are transmitted via satellite and the ability to circumvent those constraints using innovations to recapture tags at sea.…”

Using accelerometers to remotely and automatically characterize behavior in small animals

“…Remote monitoring of behavior with accelerometers is an increasingly common method for measuring behavior in wild animals while mitigating these problems (Brown et al, 2013;Davis et al, 1999;Kays et al, 2015;Lagarde et al, 2008;Nakamura et al, 2015;Shamoun-Baranes et al, 2012;Weimerskirch et al, 2005;Wilmers et al, 2015). Thus far, accelerometers have mainly been deployed on larger species because of the weight limitations imposed by smaller-bodied animals ( Fig.…”

Use of bio-loggers to characterize red fox behavior with implications for studies of magnetic alignment responses in free-roaming animals

“…Recent advances in bio-logging technology and its increasing deployment in studies of animal behavior and physiology are providing new approaches to investigating both large-scale and fine-scale properties of spatial behavior in domestic and free-roaming animals [1][2][3]. Among the many sensor options, triaxial accelerometers can yield a wealth of valuable information about movements in three-dimensional space, but need sophisticated analysis techniques to be properly interpreted [4].…”