Overall Dynamic Body Acceleration measures activity differently on large vs small aquatic animals

The benefits of dominance are well known and numerous, including first access to resources such as food, mates and nesting sites. Less well studied are the potential costs associated with being dominant. Here, the movement of two flocks of domestic homing pigeons (Columba livia) – measured via accelerometry loggers – was recorded over a period of two weeks. Movement was then used to calculate each individual’s daily overall dynamic body acceleration (ODBA, G), which can be used as a proxy for energy expenditure. The dominance hierarchy of the two flocks was determined via group-level antagonistic interactions, and demonstrated a significantly linear structure. The most dominant bird within each flock was found to move significantly more than conspecifics – on average, c.39% greater than the individual with the next highest degree of movement – indicating a possible cost to possessing the top rank within a hierarchy. Despite the dominance hierarchy being linear, mean daily total ODBA did not reflect a linear nature, with no pattern observed between rank and ODBA, once the top ranked individuals had been accounted for. This suggest that energy expenditure may be more reflective of a despotic hierarchy. These results show the potential for the future use of accelerometery as a tool to study the fusion of energetics and behaviour.Subject CategorybehaviourSubject Areasbehaviour, physiology

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Accelerometer-derived activity correlates with volitional swimming speed in lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens)

Canadian Journal of Zoology ◽

10.1139/cjz-2014-0271 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 93 (8) ◽

pp. 645-654 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

J.D. Thiem ◽

J.W. Dawson ◽

A.C. Gleiss ◽

E.G. Martins ◽

A. Haro ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Data Storage ◽

Swimming Speed ◽

Beat Frequency ◽

Lake Sturgeon ◽

Parameter Estimates ◽

Acipenser Fulvescens ◽

Body Acceleration ◽

Data Storage Tags ◽

Overall Dynamic Body Acceleration ◽

Tail Beat

Quantifying fine-scale locomotor behaviours associated with different activities is challenging for free-swimming fish. Biologging and biotelemetry tools can help address this problem. An open channel flume was used to generate volitional swimming speed (Us) estimates of cultured lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens Rafinesque, 1817) and these were paired with simultaneously recorded accelerometer-derived metrics of activity obtained from three types of data-storage tags. This study examined whether a predictive relationship could be established between four different activity metrics (tail-beat frequency (TBF), tail-beat acceleration amplitude (TBAA), overall dynamic body acceleration (ODBA), and vectorial dynamic body acceleration (VeDBA)) and the swimming speed of A. fulvescens. Volitional Us of sturgeon ranged from 0.48 to 2.70 m·s−1 (0.51–3.18 body lengths (BL)·s−1). Swimming speed increased linearly with all accelerometer-derived metrics, and when all tag types were combined, Us increased 0.46 BL·s−1 for every 1 Hz increase in TBF, and 0.94, 0.61, and 0.94 BL·s−1 for every 1g increase in TBAA, ODBA, and VeDBA, respectively. Predictive relationships varied among tag types and tag-specific parameter estimates of Us are presented for all metrics. This use of acceleration data-storage tags demonstrated their applicability for the field quantification of sturgeon swimming speed.

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