Search

Over the past five decades, a large number of wild animals have been individually identified by various observation systems and/or temporary tracking methods, providing unparalleled insights into their lives over both time and space. However, so far there is no comprehensive record of uniquely individually identified animals nor where their data and metadata are stored, for example photos, physiological and genetic samples, disease screens, information on social relationships.Databases currently do not offer unique identifiers for living, individual wild animals, similar to the permanent ID labelling for deceased museum specimens.To address this problem, we introduce two new concepts: (1) a globally unique animal ID (UAID) available to define uniquely and individually identified animals archived in any database, including metadata archived at the time of publication; and (2) the digital 'home' for UAIDs, the Movebank Life History Museum (MoMu), storing and linking metadata, media, communications and other files associated with animals individually identified in the wild. MoMu will ensure that metadata are available for future generations, allowing permanent linkages to information in other databases.MoMu allows researchers to collect and store photos, behavioural records, genome data and/or resightings of UAIDed animals, encompassing information not easily included in structured datasets supported by existing databases. Metadata is uploaded through the Animal Tracker app, the MoMu website, by email from registered users or through an Application Programming Interface (API) from any database. Initially, records can be stored in a temporary folder similar to a field drawer, as naturalists routinely do. Later, researchers and specialists can curate these materials for individual animals, manage the secure sharing of sensitive information and, where appropriate, publish individual life histories with DOIs. The storage of such synthesized lifetime stories of wild animals under a UAID (unique identifier or 'animal passport') will support basic science, conservation efforts and public participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of large carnivores in semi-arid ecosystems presents inherent challenges due to their low densities, extensive home ranges, and elusive nature. We explore the potential for the synthesis of traditional knowledge (i.e. art of tracking) and modern technology to address challenges in conservation and wildlife research in these challenging environments. Our research focuses on the African lion (Panthera leo) in the Central Kalahari region of Botswana as a model system to demonstrate the potential of this integrative approach. Combining GPS tracking and traditional San trackers’ expertise, we present two case studies: (1) the individual identification of lions via a combination of tracking and footprint analysis and (2) the monitoring of territorial behavior through a combination of GPS technology (i.e. GPS collars and handheld GPS devices) and non-invasive tracking. These approaches enhance our understanding of carnivore ecology as well as support conservation efforts by offering a non-invasive, cost-effective, and highly accurate means of monitoring populations. Our findings underscore the value of merging traditional tracking skills with contemporary analytical and technological developments to offer new insights into the ecology of carnivores in challenging environments. This approach not only improves data collection accuracy and efficiency but also fosters a deeper understanding of wildlife, ensuring the conservation and sustainable management of these species. Our work advocates for the inclusion of indigenous knowledge in conservation science, highlighting its relevance and applicability across various disciplines, thereby broadening the methodologies used to study wildlife, monitor populations, and inform conservation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent proliferation of GPS technology has transformed animal movement research. Yet, time‐series data from this recent technology rarely span beyond a decade, constraining longitudinal research. Long‐term field sites hold valuable historic animal location records, including hand‐drawn maps and semantic descriptions. Here, we introduce a generalised workflow for converting such records into reliable location data to estimate home ranges, using 30 years of sleep‐site data from 11 white‐faced capuchin (Cebus imitator) groups in Costa Rica. Our findings illustrate that historic sleep locations can reliably recover home range size and geometry. We showcase the opportunity our approach presents to resolve open questions that can only be addressed with very long‐term data, examining how home ranges are affected by climate cycles and demographic change. We urge researchers to translate historical records into usable movement data before this knowledge is lost; it is essential to understanding how animals are responding to our changing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Biotropica is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Tool‐using primates often show sex differences in both the frequency and efficiency of tool use. In species with sex‐biased dispersal, such within‐group variation likely shapes patterns of cultural transmission of tool‐use traditions between groups. On the Panamanian islands of Jicarón and Coiba, a population of white‐faced capuchins (Cebus capucinus imitator)—some of which engage in habitual stone tool use—provide an opportunity to test hypotheses about why such sex‐biases arise. On Jicarón, we have only observed males engaging in stone tool use, whereas on Coiba, both sexes are known to use tools. Using 5 years of camera trap data, we provide evidence that this variation likely reflects a sex difference in tool use rather than a sampling artifact, and then test hypotheses about the factors driving this pattern. Differences in physical ability or risk‐aversion, and competition over access to anvils do not account for the sex‐differences in tool‐use we observe. Our data show that adult females are physically capable of stone tool use: adult females on Coiba and juveniles on Jicarón smaller than adult females regularly engage in tool use. Females also have ample opportunity to use tools: the sexes are equally terrestrial, and competition over anvils is low. Finally, females rarely scrounge on left‐over food items either during or after tool‐using events, suggesting they are not being provisioned by males. Although it remains unclear why adult white‐faced capuchin females on Jicarón do not use stone‐tools, our results illustrate that such sex biases in socially learned behaviors can arise even in the absence of obvious physical, environmental, and social constraints. This suggests that a much more nuanced understanding of the differences in social structure, diet, and dispersal patterns are needed to explain why sex‐biases in tool use arise in some populations but not in others. Research Highlights: Stone tool use by wild white‐faced capuchins is exclusively male‐biased on Jicarón island, Panamá, while both sexes engage in stone tool use on the neighboring island of Coiba.Female white‐faced capuchins on Jicarón are physically able to use stone tools, have opportunity to use tools, and are not being provisioned by males, yet we observed no evidence of female tool use.Our results highlight that sex biases in socially learned behaviors, like tool use, can arise even without apparent physical, environmental, or social constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2010.06.006 Byline: Margaret C. Crofoot (a)(b)(c), Thomas D. Lambert (d), Roland Kays (b)(e), Martin C. Wikelski (a)(b) Abstract: In studies of animal behaviour, researchers have long been concerned that their presence may change the conduct of their study subjects. To minimize observer effects, researchers often habituate their study animals. The premise of this method is that, with sufficient neutral exposure, animals will stop reacting to humans. While numerous studies demonstrate that negative responses to humans decrease over time, the fact that an animal does not flee from or behave aggressively towards observers cannot be taken as evidence that it is not altering its behaviour in other, more subtle ways. Because remotely monitoring the behaviour of wild animals is difficult, it has not been possible to answer the critical question: do habituated animals change their behaviour when researchers are present? Here, we use data from an automated radiotelemetry system that remotely monitored the movement and activity of radiocollared animals to test whether observers affected the behaviour of seven habituated white-faced capuchins, Cebus capucinus. We found no evidence that observers influenced the ranging behaviour or activity patterns of their study subjects. Capuchins did not move faster, stop to rest less frequently, or display higher levels of activity when they were being followed compared to when they were alone. It has been suggested that researchers may embolden habituated study subjects, artificially increasing their relative dominance, but we found no relationship between observer presence and proximity to neighbouring social groups. Although it remains possible that observer effects existed but were too subtle to be detected with the remote sensing technology we used, the results of this study nevertheless provide reassuring evidence that humans can observe habituated wild animals without overly influencing the animals' activity and movement patterns. Author Affiliation: (a) Division of Migration and Immuno-ecology, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Radolfzell, Germany (b) Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Ancon, Panama (c) Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, U.S.A. (d) Department of Biology, Frostburg State University, Frostburg, MD, U.S.A. (e) New York State Museum, CEC 3140, Albany, NY, U.S.A. Article History: Received 24 February 2010; Revised 19 April 2010; Accepted 12 May 2010 Article Note: (miscellaneous) MS. number: A10-00133

1. Home-range estimates are a common product of animal tracking data, as each range represents the area needed by a given individual. Population-level inference of home-range areas—where multiple individual home ranges are considered to be sampled from a population—is also important to evaluate changes over time, space or covariates such as habitat quality or fragmentation, and for comparative analyses of species averages. Population-level home-range parameters have traditionally been estimated by first assuming that the input tracking data were sampled independently when calculating home ranges via conventional kernel density estimation (KDE) or minimal convex polygon (MCP) methods, and then assuming that those individual home ranges were measured exactly when calculating the population-level estimates. This conventional approach does not account for the temporal autocorrelation that is inherent in modern tracking data, nor for the uncertainties of each individual home-range estimate, which are often large and heterogeneous. 2. Here, we introduce a statistically and computationally efficient framework for the population-level analysis of home-range areas, based on autocorrelated kernel density estimation (AKDE), that can account for variable temporal autocorrelation and estimation uncertainty. 3. We apply our method to empirical examples on lowland tapir Tapirus terrestris, kinkajou Potos flavus, white-nosed coati Nasua narica, white-faced capuchin monkey Cebus capucinus and spider monkey Ateles geoffroyi, and quantify differences between species, environments and sexes. 4. Our approach allows researchers to more accurately compare different populations with different movement behaviours or sampling schedules while retaining statistical precision and power when individual home-range uncertainties vary. Finally, we emphasize the estimation of effect sizes when comparing populations, rather than mere significance tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Biotropica is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Animal-attached devices have transformed our understanding of vertebrate ecology. To minimize any associated harm, researchers have long advocated that tag masses should not exceed 3% of carrier body mass. However, this ignores tag forces resulting from animal movement. Using data from collar-attached accelerometers on 10 diverse free-ranging terrestrial species from koalas to cheetahs, we detail a tag-based acceleration method to clarify acceptable tag mass limits. We quantify animal athleticism in terms of fractions of animal movement time devoted to different collar-recorded accelerations and convert those accelerations to forces (acceleration × tag mass) to allow derivation of any defined force limits for specified fractions of any animal's active time. Specifying that tags should exert forces that are less than 3% of the gravitational force exerted on the animal's body for 95% of the time led to corrected tag masses that should constitute between 1.6% and 2.98% of carrier mass, depending on athleticism. Strikingly, in four carnivore species encompassing two orders of magnitude in mass (ca 2–200 kg), forces exerted by '3%' tags were equivalent to 4–19% of carrier body mass during moving, with a maximum of 54% in a hunting cheetah. This fundamentally changes how acceptable tag mass limits should be determined by ethics bodies, irrespective of the force and time limits specified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When members of a group differ in locomotor capacity, coordinating collective movement poses a challenge: some individuals may have to move faster (or slower) than their preferred speed to remain together. Such compromises have energetic repercussions, yet research in collective behaviour has largely neglected locomotor consensus costs. Here, we integrate high-resolution tracking of wild baboon locomotion and movement with simulations to demonstrate that size-based variation in locomotor capacity poses an obstacle to the collective movement. While all baboons modulate their gait and move-pause dynamics during collective movement, the costs of maintaining cohesion are disproportionately borne by smaller group members. Although consensus costs are not distributed equally, all group-mates do make locomotor compromises, suggesting a shared decision-making process drives the pace of collective movement in this highly despotic species. These results highlight the importance of considering how social dynamics and locomotor capacity interact to shape the movement ecology of group-living species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Methods in Ecology & Evolution is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Conservation Biology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Vocal individuality has been documented in a variety of mammalian species and it has been proposed that this individuality can be used as a vocal fingerprint to monitor individuals. Here we provide and test a classification method using Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) to extract features from Bornean gibbon female calls. Our method is semi-automated as it requires manual pre-processing to identify and extract calls from the original recordings. We compared two methods of MFCC feature extraction: (1) averaging across all time windows and (2) creating a standardized number of time windows for each call. We analysed 376 calls from 33 gibbon females and, using linear discriminant analysis, found that we were able to improve female identification accuracy from 95.7% with spectrogram features to 98.4% accuracy when averaging MFCCs across time windows, and 98.9% accuracy when using a standardized number of windows. We divided our data randomly into training and test data-sets, and tested the accuracy of support vector machine (SVM) predictions over 100 iterations. We found that we could predict female identity in the test data-set with a 98.8% accuracy. Using SVM on our entire data-set, we were able to predict female identity with 99.5% accuracy (validated by leave-one-out cross-validation). Lastly, we used the method presented here to classify four females recorded during three or more recording seasons using SVM with limited success. We provide evidence that MFCC feature extraction is effective for distinguishing between female Bornean gibbons, and make suggestions for future vocal fingerprinting applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acoustic signals serve important functions in mate choice, resource defense, and species recognition. Quantifying patterns and sources of variation in acoustic signals can advance understanding of the evolutionary processes that shape behavioral diversity more broadly. Animal vocalization datasets are inherently multivariate and hierarchical, wherein multiple features are estimated from calls of many individuals across different recording locations. Patterns of variation within different hierarchical levels—notwithstanding the challenges they present for modeling and inference—can provide insight into processes shaping vocal variation. The current work presents a multivariate, variance components model to investigate three levels of variance (within-female, between-female, and between-site) in Bornean gibbon calls. For six of the eight features estimated from call spectrograms, between-female variance was the most important contributor to total variance. For one feature, trill rate, there were site-level differences, which may be related to geographic isolation of certain gibbon populations. There was also a negative relationship between trill rate and duration of the introduction, suggesting trade-offs in the production of gibbon calls. Given substantial inter-individual variation in gibbon calls, it seems likely that there has been selection to confer information regarding caller identity, but mechanisms leading to site-level variation in trill rate remain to be determined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavior initiation is a form of leadership and is an important aspect of social organization that affects the processes of group formation, dynamics, and decision-making in human societies and other social animal species. In this work, we formalize the Coordination Initiator Inference Problem and propose a simple yet powerful framework for extracting periods of coordinated activity and determining individuals who initiated this coordination, based solely on the activity of individuals within a group during those periods. The proposed approach, given arbitrary individual time series, automatically (1) identifies times of coordinated group activity, (2) determines the identities of initiators of those activities, and (3) classifies the likely mechanism by which the group coordination occurred, all of which are novel computational tasks. We demonstrate our framework on both simulated and real-world data: trajectories tracking of animals as well as stock market data. Our method is competitive with existing global leadership inference methods but provides the first approaches for local leadership and coordination mechanism classification. Our results are consistent with ground-truthed biological data and the framework finds many known events in financial data which are not otherwise reflected in the aggregate NASDAQ index. Our method is easily generalizable to any coordinated time series data from interacting entities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Except for owl monkeys ( Aotus spp.), all anthropoid primates are considered strictly diurnal. Recent studies leveraging new technologies have shown, however, that some diurnal anthropoids also engage in nocturnal activity. Here we examine the extent to which vervets ( Chlorocebus pygerythrus) and olive baboons ( Papio anubis) are active at night. Materials and Methods We deployed GPS collars with tri-axial accelerometer data loggers on 18 free-ranging adult females: 12 vervets spread among 5 social groups, and 6 olive baboons spread among 4 groups. Their locations were recorded every 15 min, and their activity levels, for 3 s/min over 7.5 months. We also used camera traps that were triggered by heat and movement at seven sleeping sites. Results Travel was detected on 0.4% of 2,029 vervet-nights involving 3 vervets and 1.1% of 1,109 baboon-nights involving 5 baboons. Travel was mainly arboreal for vervets but mainly terrestrial for baboons. During the night, vervets and baboons were active 13% and 15% of the time, respectively. Activity varied little throughout the night and appeared unaffected by moon phase. Discussion Our results confirm the low nocturnality of vervets and olive baboons, which we suggest is related to living near the equator with consistent 12-hr days, in contrast to other anthropoids that are more active at night. Since anthropoid primates are thought to have evolved in northern latitudes, with later dispersal to tropical latitudes, our results may have implications for understanding the evolution of anthropoid diurnality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful conservation requires an understanding of animal movement patterns and space use. Such data are hard to obtain, however, when difficult terrain, nocturnal habits, or lack of habituation make direct observation impractical. White-footed tamarins ( Saguinus leucopus) are small primates endemic to Colombia that are in danger of extinction due to habitat loss, fragmentation, and the illegal pet trade. Here, we report the results of the first study to use radio-tracking to investigate white-footed tamarin ranging behavior. We recorded the movements of three neighboring tamarin groups simultaneously for 3 month using radio-telemetry. Home range sizes (estimated using both minimum convex polygon and fixed kernel contour methods) were substantially larger than reported in previous studies that did not use remote-tracking. Monte Carlo resampling procedures revealed that home range size differed significantly among the three groups but that the mean daily path length did not. As in other tamarin species, the degree of range overlap between neighboring social groups was high, ranging from 27 to 81%. Using a randomization test, we showed that the observed mean distance between groups was significantly lower than expected by chance for two of the three group dyads. This pattern of intergroup “attraction,” in conjunction with substantial range overlap and high population density, implies that the Bellavista Forest, one of the few remaining habitats of Saguinus leucopus, may be saturated, and promoting habitat restoration should be a priority for the conservation of this species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Although competition between social groups is central to hypotheses about the evolution of human social organization, competitive interactions among group-mates are thought to play a more dominant role in shaping the behavior and ecology of other primate species. However, few studies have directly tested the impact of intergroup conflicts in non-human primates. What is the cost of defeat? To address this question, the movements of six neighboring white-faced capuchin ( Cebus capucinus) social groups living on Barro Colorado Island, Panama were tracked simultaneously using an Automated Radio Telemetry System (ARTS), for a period of six months. Groups moved 13% (441 m) further on days they lost interactions compared with days they won interactions. To cover these larger distances, they traveled faster, stopped less frequently, and remained active later in the evening. Defeat also caused groups to alter their patterns of space use. Losing groups had straighter travel paths than winning groups, larger net displacements and were more likely to change their sleeping site. These results demonstrate that losing groups pay increased travel costs and suggest that they forage in low-quality areas. They provide some of the first direct evidence that intergroup conflicts have important energetic consequences for members of competitively unsuccessful primate social groups. A better understanding of how intergroup competition impacts patterns of individual fitness is thus needed to clarify the role that this group-level process plays in shaping the evolution of human- and non-human primate behavior. Am J Phys Anthropol 152:79-85, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]