Wildlife Behavior - Science topic

Oxford University Press, PLOS, etc. may be searched.

I am working with trail cameras. There are many different options, from Flash Trail Cameras, Led Trail Cameras, and IR trail cameras. They support night vision even with time-lapsing and will be much better than GoPro's.

With GoPro, the battery won't last for long, but with Trail Cameras you can have them on the field even 6 months or 1 year (depending on the trail camera and the batteries).

Also, as for your problem with the trail cameras you can mount them wherever you need, and not just by strapping them around a tree but using a mount holder which you can even screw it on wood, cement, and rocks.

I hope I answered your question.

A multi-disciplinary approach centered around the life sciences and math (quantitative analysis) are fundamental to ecology. You may find this tricky to find. If in doubt start with biology. Good luck, it is the road least travelled at the end of the day.

I am interested but where this place?

You need seasonal data about the species diversity in the study areas connected by the corridors. Residents tend to remain in the area studied throughout the year while the migrants will move in seasons. This process of thorough observation requires patience. All the best!

Hi Jeremy Orange. There is a simple and elegant example of how can you perform these comparisons between habitat availability and use in these articles:

Neu, C. W., Byers, C. R. and J. M. Peek. 1974. A technique for analysis of utilization-availability data. Journal of Wildlife Management 38:541-545.

Byers, C. R., Steinhorst, R. K. and P. R. Krausman. 1984. Clarification of a technique for analysis of utilization-availability data. Journal of Wildlife Management 48:1050-1053.

With GPS track data and quantification of habitat availability this is easy to do.

All the best,

Alexander

You may want to monitor this project website (https://predatorpreyproject.weebly.com/) or reach out to Laura R. Prugh

I am going to provide an answer which is rather indirect. There is a resident community, upstream the Port-Reitz Creek in Mombasa, Kenya. The resident population was, initially made up of local people. They understood the importance of mangroves as a habitat for fish, crabs, lobsters etc. Consequently, they conserved the mangrove habitat as it was bringing benefits in terms of income from fishing activities. They were not keeping any data in terms of fish catch income, but, all they knew was that life was good. Then came another community, initially, not resident to the area.

The new community saw the mangrove forest as a source of charcoal and building poles. They started harvesting these from the mangrove forest. The consequence was a decline in fish catch and income for the indigenous local population. This resulted in disharmony between the two communities occasioned by the resource use conflict. While I have some knowledge about this issue, I did not venture to find out if data was generated, However, my colleagues in Research Gate, particularly those involved in marine science studies, may have better insight on the subject. Does my answer tickle the mind of such one colleague to provide a more comprehensive answer to the questioner, I wonder?

First of all you have to ask some questions. How far do the birds range in the time you want to track them? How many do you want to track at once? Will you be flying or monitoring from a car/truck? If you have funding for air, this is the best if the birds are either migrating or moving around with no roost to return to. I tracked migrating western sandpipers (about 25g) using Lotek transmitters and receiver. These are coded radios so that you only have one frequency, saving you time circling around and around to make sure that your receiver has cycled through all of the frequencies.

However, I had problems with detection of the devices at first, but I believed that they straightened that out. The receiver records the entire time so if you are distracted by something and forget to write down one of the codes, it's all there for you in the receiver.

Dear Amael, 

Thank you very much. Could you please provide approximate date, exact location and number of individuals involved?

All the best wishes,

Anders

In Indonesian New Guinea (western parts of New Guinea Island), there is a tendency of indigenous groups using modern hunting equipment that mostly used by non-indigenous groups to make hunting more efficient  with active technique.  While some of non-indigenous tribes are currently applying passive hunting techniques (using huge number of traps and snares - about 50-200) that commonly used by indigenous tribes to maximize harvest rates for trading purposes. Both practice are using side by side related to the purpose of hunting.

Hi Nills

Take a look: http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/handle/10289/2357

Best of luck

df

Indo-Pak fencing along the Line of Control has come up as a major obstruction in migration and dispersal of Pir Panjal markhor (Capra falconeri cashmiriensis) an endangered wild goat restricted to a portion of Pir-Panjal across the border on either side. Ibex and Urial are the other sufferers. 

Please check these researchgate links and PDF attachment.

Dear  Eric (to Alexsandra too)

I am not specialist but I would like share with you some reflections. As I understand Aposematic is a phenomenon pure defensive like color bright to avoid predators. However, my thinking always was related with the real effects in different predator with different vision. Important is if the animals have nocturnal or diurnal. During the night the color are without effect. I have doubt if the natural selection could be work for several predators in the same time. If predators are close related, ok, could be, but not for others. Some predator could be blind to colors or few colors. If the aposematic character could fixed for predators is because they are physiologically capable to detect this color bright. The question is if the effect could be the same for the species mate and if could impact or change the interspecific behavior. I think that important variables of any experiment is consider the vision of the counterpart (predator or mate). Some interesting test could be produce artificial changes of the color of the target species with innocuous dyes or produce artificial and temporal blindness in predator or mate. I think that some time the interpretation is anthropological and the effect of hazard is diminished.

I had that same problem with sage-grouse (back feathers covering the solar panel on dorsally-mounted GPS transmitters) and solved it entirely by: 1) mounting transmitters on T-shaped neoprene pads, and 2) using thicker neoprene (0.635 cm, or 1/4") to raise the panel higher off the back. Assuming your antenna is at the back end of the transmitter and bird (extending out over the rump/tail), the top of the "T" goes toward the front of the transmitter so that any feathers emerging in front of/above the transmitter and along the sides of the front half of the transmitter cannot cover the panel. When correctly deployed, the neoprene extends 1.25 cm in all directions from the front half of the transmitter (may need to be longer on larger birds with longer back feathers).  Feathers emerging further back than that don't affect the transmitter, so to minimize weight, the neoprene only needs to be as wide as the transmitter at the back. Consider minimizing impacts on birds by eliminating scent (glue fumes, human scent, etc.), reducing visibility (paint transmitters to match color/pattern of back feathers if deployed on prey species), and sewing elastic into harnesses to increase flexibility while maintaining a snug fit (esp. for younger birds that might still grow a little more).  Good luck!

We use North Star for satellite tracking collars on swans and I know they do several other tracking devices for other wildlife species.  I don't know what there pricing is but you could certainly get a quote from them.

Hi Andrew (Jorge?),

I got confused by Margarita's post about the high altitude since it seems to me there was no reference of it on your post. I am from Chile BTW.

If you have no previous experience flying drones, then you need something "easy" to fly and better if it has the capability to fly a preset path and come back by itself. Anything bigger than 4 rotors you are increasing A LOT the needed budget as well as limiting its portability. For field work I would recommend to stay with the quadcopter models. Considering the need of a cheap and easy to fly quadcopter but reliable at the same time, your choices are reduced to just a couple of models.

The camera depends on the distance to your target and details you need to see. If a gopro4 is enough for you, then the DJI Phantom4 or the Inspire 1 (with their firmware updated) are a good start. Both are portable, easy to deploy and fly, and can do flight missions following a preset path. You can see in real time what the camera is recording and you can adjust on the fight some settings. A a higher value, the Inspire allows you to control the in-built camera by a second operator, with total freedom to rotate (roll/pitch/yaw) without landing skids on the frame.

DJI has even an IR camera for the Inspire. Both models are quite simple to fly, portable and reliable.

I have used my Phantom at the level of the sea (hand take-off / landing from a boat) as well as in the high Andes, and no problem at all. As Margarita stated, there are some differences but not something preventing you to fly. The quadcopter performs just as well, excepting for the shorter flying time. I got 3-blade props for high altitude (and extra batteries), as well as other props for different missions.

A must for your crabs swarming studies is to include a CPL filter (polarizer) to the lens of he camera (there are for gopro4, as well as for the inbuilt cameras of the Phantom4 and Inspire. This is to erase the reflections of the surface of the water, allowing you to see the crabs better. I would suggest also, when working in a salty environment, a bottle of CorrosionX to "paint" with a small brush all the electronics inside the drone, as well as the motors and stay far form landing or taking off from sand that could stop a motor.

For post-productions there are many applications that can reduce or eliminate the fish eye distortion and stabilize even more the image (e.g. Mercalli). It is not just about flying with a camera, but also to be able to analyze the images. So, producing a flight log, would hep to estimate sizes, distances etc.

good luck

gps

Is it for normal audio frequencies (20 Hz ... 20 kHz) or is it the ultrasound range (for example for marmosets or other small monkeys which vocalize beyond our hearing range)?

Can you specify the frequency range of the sounds that you want to playback and also the required SPL (Sound Pressure Level)?

I attach a brochure of the SONOTRACK equipment produced by Metris B.V. (www.metris.nl) which is specifically designed for recording, analyzing and playing back ultrasounds. We have also mobile versions and different type of speakers.

Hi Dilian,

Very good point that Stuart Parsons makes - birds can't hear ultrasound! But I was wondering about mammalian predators of forest bats. Some carnivores can certainly hear ultrasound (cf ultrasonic cat and dog repellers). I think it unlikely that bats would emit specific calls to repel them, but not impossible...

Best wishes,

David 

Regarding methods, you may want to consider some of the track behavioural segmentation algorithms (e.g., Nams Ecology Letters 2014, Blackwell et al. Methods in Ecology and Evolutions 2015). Or, some of the earlier stuff like first passage time or Guarie's behavioral change point analysis.

Alternatively, one may be able to simply define migration as an expert biologist, for example when an animal leaves the boundary of it's territory?

Yes.

M.J. Whittingham , R.B. Bradbury , J.D. Wilson , A.J. Morris , A.J.

Perkins & G.M. Siriwardena (2001) Chaffinch Fringilla coelebs foraging patterns, nestling

survival and territory distribution on lowland farmland, Bird Study, 48:3, 257-270, DOI:

gives territory densities in a UK study area and the study area in hectares. You should be able to infer something from that I would think

Thank you for your kind answers!

Roberto

Hi John and all,

The project mentioned by Danlico is Taiwan Roadkill Observation Network (http://roadkill.tw) which collects roadkilled animal observations from Facebook, and transforms the crowdsourced data to structured data for scientific purposes. You can browse all observation data from website, as well as download data via API. Enclosed some papers for your references.

I work in Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica. And you? Your work place seems to be same as me. Might be we can talk face-to-face. 

Dongpo

It does sound like a sudden opening of a new niche (or an increase of a previously scarce resource) that the species quickly occupied. This is more common in human-influenced habitats were changes can be very quick. For instance, I recently eared of a sudden explosion in the number of nesting Audouin's gulls in southern Portugal (a species that before was considered of conservation concern) and it seems that this change can be fully explained by a change in fishing regulations that forced fishermen to discard some species caught by by-catch, suddenly increasing the food availability for the gulls on the coast.

Whoops, thought I'd answered.  Tom, I think the reference you should look at (beyond the Royle et al. 2014 book chapter dealing with area searches) is by Thompson et al. 2012 in JWM (something like a framework for SCR with unstructured sampling, involves scat-detecting dogs).  You also might look at Murray Efford's 'secr' vignettes for area searches or transect searches.  These will be the most trustworthy sources. 

In short, I think the grid cell must be smaller than a home range.  in a traditional area search (e.g., the Royle and Young 2008 paper), the (single) cell is being exhaustively systematically searched, so that the sampling allows for (imperfect) animal detection essentially anywhere.  In your situation, you are sampling along a one dimensional-transect or route, and animals can only be detected along that route.  For a number of reasons, transect-based samples or linear routes cause some difficulty related to the continuous space being sampled. One way of dealing with this is to treat the center of a grid cell as something like a static camera or hair-snag; if this is the route you follow, then you want grid cells smaller than a home range so that you actually generate spatial recaptures!  My memory is that the guidelines were something like 1-2 x sigma for cell dimensions, but check the references. 

I have once seen a video review of this camera and really its awesome. Here is the link to it  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfScn-YlQ0U

Really the possibilities are numerous with this camera. However, for the applications that you are suggesting one needs a proper tethering mechanism to conventional programming systems for image processing.

Like Mathew said,  Read et al's paper in 2007 gives a good review about homing ability crocodiles and eventually proves that it happens based on their satellite data. 

Link to the paper: 

I found the papers below helpful when trying to figure out how to attach a tag to horses. I particularly appreciated that the latter paper forms a reference for a low-toxicity epoxy.

Fedak, M. A., S. S. Anderson, and M. G. Curry. 1983. Attachment of a radio tag to the fur of seals. Journal of Zoology 200:298–300.

Field, I. C., R. G. Harcourt, L. Boehme, P. J. N. de Bruyn, J.-B. Charrassin, C. R. McMahon, M. N. Bester, M. A. Fedak, and M. A. Hindell. 2012. Refining instrument attachment on phocid seals. Marine Mammal Science 28:E325–E332.

Hi altogether,

although I agree with most of the mentioned above, I would be careful in assuming the conditions in mink to be analogue to otters - whereas in minks there is considerable sexual dimorphism, eurasian otters of both sexes do not differ as much, do they? Size is an important aspect in predators choice of prey. It would be interesting to learn if the favored prey species in females correlates with physiological demands during pregnancy and lactation period...does anyone know a paper on this question?

Cheers,

Ernst-Hermann

Thanks for those PDF 

Hi Yadav, 

I do think it is an interesting line of thought and I would be interested to see whether the tiger removes the lesser predators, or whether they emigrate the area of their own volition now that they have been usurped of their top predator status. But I would still be on the page that this was due to direct competition over the same carcass, initiated by the tiger - rather than the "public example hypothesis" :)

If you do find a jackal corpse killed in a similar fashion, then I would be thinking it could only be a tiger that has killed it. Principally because most canids are pack hunters and an intruder to a packs territory would not be met by a single member of the pack. Therefore I would expect that the carcass would be relatively torn-apart in the fighting, even if it wasn't eaten. 

Again a jackal (even a bigger one) is not that much bigger than a leopard or even some of the smaller cat family members. I would have thought the potential risk during a battle would be a deterrent. I just can't imagine a small-medium sized predator deciding to risk injury without the direct benefit of food. Difficult one

Well, your insights and links are changing my perspective -- I will let you know how I do.  Thanks.

First of all you should make sure you distinguish between domestication and taming. Domestication is when humans through selective breeding transform an animal or plant species into something useful for humans while taming involves usually a single or few individuals of an animal species taken in by humans and carefully nurtured so that they can co-exist in human communities. However a single taming will not make a whole species domesticated.

In light of this, domestication has been beneficial in an ecological context as it has provided a sustainable food source to the growing human population over the past centuries. An example of useful domestication is cattle rared by Maasai pastoralists who would otherwise rely on hunting in the wild as a source of food. So domestication of wild animals can be useful as it takes off the pressure from wild and novel habitats especially in the long run.

However, it should be enough for humans to maintain and improve the current domestications especially with regard to animals, instead of going out into the wild to tame news species. Taming has been a source of major ecological problems such as animal trafficking which is threatening wild populations.

There is also an issue of spread of pathogens  from wild species to humans resulting into epidemics such as measles and tuberculosis from diseases of cattle, influenza from a disease of  some avian species and pigs and more recently Ebola & Anthrax from primates and other wild animals. The genesis of these epidemics can easily be  traced to domestication or taming. Since it has happened to humans, increased taming and domestication may also result into an  increase in transmissions especially between wild species which is a minus in an ecological context.

There is also an issue of increased invasive alien species which are threatening many novel habitats. Pathways of invasion can easily be traced to human  trans-locations and introductions of alien species into new geographical ranges in an attempt to domesticate or tame them. Though i can't personally give examples of animals that have become invasive through this there are examples of  many ornamental plants for example Eichhornia crassipes, Impatiens glandulifera, etc that were introduced as garden plants but escaped into the wild.

Here is an article i found interesting about the issue:  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11218799_Evolution_consequences_and_future_of_plant_and_animal_domestication

Best regards

We used video-observation for nest-predation! Self-made equipment (as usual): small webcams on long flexible mounts (goosneck flexarms, e.g. manfrotto). Videoobservation is much better than cam-traps, you have no delay!

The collar-cams for cats are quite cool. The best seem to be those of National Geographic. However, you may not buy, but only rent them - for a fee of 300,-€/week.

I suppose the following are what would be described as 'epic fails' in terms of wildlife/renewable energy structure interactions. It is a shame - we can do better.

You need a high-framerate camera for the purpose, the higher, the best temporal resolution you shall have (and more precise results). if you work on unix/Linux based computer, you may ask for someone to program that for you. i heard that VirtualDub is somewhat useful.

Dear Jeevan:

The sampling unit should be slightly higher than the home range for the target species to avoid spatial correlation. The goal is evaluate occupancy (ψ) and detection probabilities (p) for population in the landscape, and you'll need a number high enough of sampling unit and several temporal replica to evaluate them.

See the attached paper from MACKENZIE & ROYLE

I don't specifically know Lorna- I used to share on office with someone who had two captive bred males-they used to fight viciously on a regular basis so they are capable of aggressive behaviour and I believe infanticide was a regular occurrence in the captive breeding colony that used to be held here many years ago for behavioural studies.

If an artificial nest box is an option, then this is relatively straight forward for indirect calorimetry. If using a pull mode configuration (i.e. measuring excurrent flow rate) the box does not even have to be perfectly sealed. If providing nesting material, make sure it is not rotting, a "compost heap" can have a quite high metabolic rate on its own. Especially, when comparing it to a hibernating animal.

Check out this 2010 review. 

Hi Ronny

Most new trail cameras will record video of varying lengths and there are several HD models available. I use Bushnell HD Trophy Cams which are pretty good and the Ltl Acorn 6210. The latest models of these cameras also allow you to record videos and still images at the same time. They also offer the facility to adjust the night shutter speed so you can choose between quality of image and brightness. A lot depends on your budget of course and how you will be using the video/images.

Good luck with your research.

Vivien

Disturbance comes in two major forms 1) human disturbance 2) predator disturbance. There are of course other causes that will disturb birds such as weather events, a hale storm for example, or simply other birds that compete or use the same space that are non-predators. Human as well as predator disturbance have different levels which you need to define before you start your study as different causes result in different response strengths. In water birds different species of raptors and other predators which are site specific should be looked at separately as well as different causes of human disturbance. A fisherman who is there every day will cause different disturbance levels than a speed boat for example. Additional to the flight initiation distance you should look at how far they are displaced by the disturbance event and how long it takes them to settle down again. Hope this helps.

There is a rich literature in "road ecology". Indirect effects of roads include noise, visual barriers, chemical influences on neighboring ecosystems (think road salt, petrochemicals), erosion/siltation (more an issue for unpaved forest roads, which are very extensive), disruption of surface hydrology (roads going through wetlands, other aquatic systems), conduits for species invasion (for ex along medians, berms), fragmentation and genetic isolation of populations (smaller vertebrates, slower moving especially), changing of sex ratios in turtles (females must migrate to nest), and on and on and on! See reviews by Trombulak and colleagues, Forman and colleagues, Fahrig, etc. For a nice read, the Island Press book "Road Ecology: Science and Solutions" is a good place to begin! (mentioned above as well)

Dear Darasingh. If you search on Google for e.g. "dead animal scavenger", you will see a lot of pictures of vultures and other scavengers eating carcasses lying on their left shoulder. I consider it highly unlikely that scavengers would care about the alignment of a dead body. I have not read the paper, and cannot find it. Did the author not test the hypothesis? It seems to be quite easy to test...

Hi Linus

It's true that Reconyx are relatively big. However as others have said they are very good cameras and come in camouflage pattern. I use them in peri-urban areas and secure them on trees with locking cables. I have PC900 Hyperfires which last many months without battery changes. I don't know the minimum range but I have lots of good footage of animals sniffing the cameras. I've used Moultrie (not bad), and Scoutguard (not good) BUT I don't think they are as good as Reconyx. I work in a wet tropical environment and have found out the hard way that if you buy cheap camera traps you get what you pay for and they will be unreliable and deteriorate quickly; not an issue with a Reconyx. Some of the Reconyx models come with true IR flashes. As as Nickolay pointed out, some brands claim to have IR flashes but there may still be a very faint red led visible. My Scoutguards had this type of IR and as a result I have plenty of images of animals jumping back from the flash; again not an issue with my Reconyx cameras.

I think this really depends on what you know about the behaviour. 'Freezing' may be deemed inappropriate in this case due to it's common use in association with a 'stress' response or 'defence cascade' - an underlying mechanism which you may not have directly investigated?

You use the phrase "motionless activity" - are the animals doing anything in particular when they are motionless? Sleeping, looking around their environment, or grooming, for example? If you don't have any good support to label it in any functional way, I would personally advise you stick with the least functional term that accurately describes the characteristic - if your defining characteristic for these periods is a lack of movement, then perhaps use a term such as 'immobility'.