Abstract
The trade off between energy gained and expended is the foundation of understanding how, why and when animals perform any activity. Based on the concept that animal movements have an energetic cost, accelerometry is increasingly being used to estimate energy expenditure. However, validation of accelerometry as an accurate proxy for field metabolic rate in free-ranging species is limited. In the present study, Australasian gannets (Morus serrator) from the Pope's Eye colony (38°16'42"S 144°41'48"E), south-eastern Australia, were equipped with GPS and tri-axial accelerometers and dosed with doubly-labelled water (DLW) to measure energy expenditure during normal behaviour for 3-5 days. The correlation between daily energy expenditure from the DLW and Vectorial Dynamic Body Acceleration (VeDBA) was high for both a simple correlation and activity-specific approaches (R2=0.75 and 0.80, respectively). Varying degrees of success were observed for estimating at-sea metabolic rate from accelerometry when removing time on land using published energy expenditure constants (R2=0.02) or activity-specific approaches (R2=0.42). The predictive capacity of energy expenditure models for total and at-sea periods were improved by the addition of total distance travelled and proportion of the sampling period spent at sea during the night, respectively (R2= 0.61-0.82). These results indicate that accelerometry can be used to estimate daily energy expenditure in free-ranging gannets and its accuracy may depend on the inclusion of movement parameters not detected by accelerometry.
Original language | English |
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Article number | jeb246922 |
Journal | The Journal of experimental biology |
Volume | 226 |
Issue number | 23 |
Early online date | 10 Nov 2023 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Dec 2023 |
Bibliographical note
FundingThe research was financially supported by the Holsworth Wildlife Research
Endowment. Open Access funding provided by La Trobe University. Deposited in
PMC for immediate release.
Acknowledgements
We thank the Victorian Marine Science Consortium, Sea All Dolphin Swims, and
Parks Victoria for logistical support. Catherine Hambly and Peter Thomson provided
technical support for the DLW isotope analysis. Aspects of the results and
discussion in this paper are reproduced from the PhD thesis of L.P.A. (Angel, 2015).
Data Availability Statement
Information on GPS and tri-axial accelerometer data logger devices and manufacturer testing are available from figshare: doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.24418762Keywords
- doubly labelled water
- Tri-axial accelerometery
- field metabolic rate
- Australasian gannet
- Morus serrator