Articles

Classification of behaviour in housed dairy cows using an accelerometer-based activity monitoring system

Advances in bio-telemetry technology have made it possible to automatically monitor and classify behavioural activities in many animals, including domesticated species such as dairy cows. Automated behavioural...

Authors: Jorge A. Vázquez Diosdado, Zoe E. Barker, Holly R. Hodges, Jonathan R. Amory, Darren P. Croft, Nick J. Bell and Edward A. Codling

Tracking sharks without teeth: a non-invasive rigid tag attachment for large predatory sharks

Many marine species are difficult to study because components of their lifecycles occur solely or partially outside of the observable realm of researchers. Advances in biologging tags have begun to give us gli...

Authors: Taylor K. Chapple, Adrian C. Gleiss, Oliver J. D. Jewell, Martin Wikelski and Barbara A. Block

Methods to evaluate gut evacuation rates and predation using acoustic telemetry in the Tracy Fish Collection Facility primary channel

In the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, several salmonid species are listed as threatened or endangered. One potential cause of lower juvenile salmonid survival may be predation by striped bass (Morone saxatilis) an...

Authors: Andrew A Schultz, Kevin K Kumagai and Brent B Bridges

Response to Willette et al. (2015)

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Authors: David W Welch, Aswea D Porter and Paul Winchell

Nearshore movement ecology of a medium-bodied shark, the creek whaler Carcharhinus fitzroyensis

The movement and habitat use patterns of medium-bodied nearshore sharks are poorly understood. However, these species face some of the highest levels of exposure to anthropogenic development. The habitat and s...

Authors: Samantha EM Munroe, Colin A Simpfendorfer, James Moloney and Michelle R Heupel

Home range, habitat use, and movement patterns of non-native Burmese pythons in Everglades National Park, Florida, USA

Studies on the spatial ecology of invasive species provide critical information for conservation managers such as habitat preferences and identification of native species at risk of predation. To understand th...

Authors: Kristen M Hart, Michael S Cherkiss, Brian J Smith, Frank J Mazzotti, Ikuko Fujisaki, Ray W Snow and Michael E Dorcas

Movements and space use of giant trevally in coral reef habitats and the importance of environmental drivers

Effective conservation of large predators requires a broad understanding of their ecology. Caranx ignobilis is a large marine predator well represented in coral reef environments, yet they are poorly studied. Pas...

Authors: Elodie JI Lédée, Michelle R Heupel, Andrew J Tobin and Colin A Simpfendorfer

Behaviour-time budget and functional habitat use of a free-ranging European badger(Meles meles)

The European badger (Meles meles) is involved in the maintenance of bovine tuberculosis infection and onward spread to cattle. However, little is known about how transmission occurs. One possible route could be t...

Authors: David W McClune, Nikki J Marks, Richard J Delahay, W Ian Montgomery and David M Scantlebury

Close proximity detection interference with acoustic telemetry: the importance of considering tag power output in low ambient noise environments

When employing acoustic telemetry to study aquatic species, understanding the functional dynamics of the monitoring system is essential for effective study design, data interpretation, and analysis. Typically,...

Authors: Steven Thomas Kessel, Nigel Edward Hussey, Dale Mitchell Webber, Samuel Harvey Gruber, Joy Michelle Young, Malcolm John Smale and Aaron Thomas Fisk

Oversimplification of complex harvest modeling issues outlined in Welch et al. (2014)

In their paper, ‘Migration behavior of maturing sockeye (Oncorhynchus nerka) and Chinook salmon (O. tshawytscha) in Cook Inlet, Alaska, and implications for management,’ Welch et al. (Anim. Biotelem. 2:18, 2014) ...

Authors: T Mark Willette, Pat Shields and Eric C Volk

Bahamas connection: residence areas selected by breeding female loggerheads tagged in Dry Tortugas National Park, USA

Delineation of home ranges, residence and foraging areas, and migration corridors is important for understanding the habitat needs for a given species. Recently, many population segments of Northwest Atlantic ...

Authors: Kristen M Hart, Autumn R Sartain and Ikuko Fujisaki

Satellite telemetry reveals physical processes driving billfish behavior

Pop-up satellite archival transmitting (PSAT) tags are capable of storing high-resolution behavioral and environmental information for extended periods of time (approximately 1 year), rendering them especially...

Authors: Camrin D Braun, Maxwell B Kaplan, Andrij Z Horodysky and Joel K Llopiz

An open Web-based system for the analysis and sharing of animal tracking data

Improvements in telemetry technology are allowing us to monitor animal movements with increasing accuracy, precision and frequency. The increased complexity of the data collections, however, demands additional...

Authors: Ross G Dwyer, Charles Brooking, Wilfred Brimblecombe, Hamish A Campbell, Jane Hunter, Matthew Watts and Craig E Franklin

Migration behavior of maturing sockeye (Oncorhynchus nerka) and Chinook salmon (O. tshawytscha) in Cook Inlet, Alaska, and implications for management

Worsening recruitment of Alaskan Chinook salmon over the past decade has created major conservation problems. In Cook Inlet, lucrative Sockeye salmon fisheries are severely limited because of Chinook bycatch, ...

Authors: David W Welch, Aswea D Porter and Paul Winchell

Ontogenetic migration of a female scalloped hammerhead shark Sphyrna lewini in the Gulf of California

Little information exists on the vertical and horizontal movements of juvenile scalloped hammerhead sharks (Sphyrna lewini). Measurements of the sizes of juveniles caught in nets close to shore and those swimming...

Authors: E Mauricio Hoyos-Padilla, James T Ketchum, A Peter Klimley and Felipe Galván-Magaña

Extending the 2% rule: the effects of heavy internal tags on stress physiology, swimming performance, and growth in brook trout

The use of internal telemetry has greatly advanced fisheries research in the past two decades, permitting researchers to observe movements and distributions of organisms in their natural environment. For many ...

Authors: Michael G Smircich and John T Kelly

Performance of an ultrasonic telemetry positioning system under varied environmental conditions

Advances in ultrasonic telemetry, including the ability to accurately position a transmitter within an array of hydrophone receivers, have led to increased opportunities to investigate a broad spectrum of ecol...

Authors: Anna E Steel, Julia H Coates, Alex R Hearn and A Peter Klimley

Use of oviduct-inserted acoustic transmitters and positional telemetry to estimate timing and location of spawning: a feasibility study in lake trout, Salvelinus namaycush

Oviduct-inserted transmitters have shown promise for determining precise location of spawning in fishes. Use of traditional manual tracking to locate expelled oviduct transmitters is laborious and accurate est...

Authors: Thomas R Binder, Christopher M Holbrook, Scott M Miehls, Henry T Thompson and Charles C Krueger

Behavioral attributes of turbine entrainment risk for adult resident fish revealed by acoustic telemetry and state-space modeling

Fish entrainment through turbine intakes is one of the major issues for operators of hydropower facilities because it causes injury and/or mortality and adversely affects population abundance. Entrainment redu...

Authors: Eduardo G Martins, Lee F G Gutowsky, Philip M Harrison, Joanna E Mills Flemming, Ian D Jonsen, David Z Zhu, Alf Leake, David A Patterson, Michael Power and Steven J Cooke

Eyes in the sky: linking satellite oceanography and biotelemetry to explore habitat selection by basking sharks

Satellite-based oceanographic data products are a valuable source of information on potential resource availability for marine species. Satellite oceanography data may be particularly useful in biotelemetry st...

Authors: Tobey H Curtis, Stephan I Zeeman, Erin L Summers, Steven X Cadrin and Gregory B Skomal

Diving behaviour of the critically endangered tope shark Galeorhinus galeus in the Natural Reserve of Bahia San Blas, northern Patagonia

Tope sharks (Galeorhinus galeus) aggregate in large numbers during spring and summer in closed gulfs and bays in northern Patagonia; these locations are considered the main nursery areas for the species. However,...

Authors: Juan Martín Cuevas, Mirta García and Edgardo Di Giacomo

Recovery time after intra-abdominal transmitter placement for telemetric (neuro) physiological measurement in freely moving common marmosets (Callitrix jacchus)

Telemetry is very important for monitoring physiological functions in awake and freely moving laboratory animals. Although implantable transmitters reduce stress resulting from daily handling and restraint, th...

Authors: Jaco Bakker, Rianne Klomp, Milene WM Rijnbeek, Saskia S Arndt, Ingrid HCHM Philippens and Jan AM Langermans

Stomach temperature of narwhals (Monodon monoceros) during feeding events

Information on the feeding rate by free-ranging odontocetes is necessary for assessing potential conflicts with fishing activities. One way of obtaining a proxy for feeding events in homeothermic predators is ...

Authors: Mads Peter Heide-Jørgensen, Nynne H Nielsen, Rikke G Hansen and Susanna B Blackwell

Home range and movements of American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) in an estuary habitat

Understanding movement patterns of free-ranging top predators throughout heterogeneous habitat is important for gaining insight into trophic interactions. We tracked the movements of five adult American alliga...

Authors: Ikuko Fujisaki, Kristen M Hart, Frank J Mazzotti, Michael S Cherkiss, Autumn R Sartain, Brian M Jeffery, Jeffrey S Beauchamp and Mathew Denton

An approach for filtering hyperbolically positioned underwater acoustic telemetry data with position precision estimates

Telemetry systems that estimate animal positions with hyperbolic positioning algorithms also provide a technology-specific estimate of position precision (e.g., horizontal position error (HPE) for the VEMCO po...

Authors: Trevor D Meckley, Christopher M Holbrook, C Michael Wagner and Thomas R Binder

Animal Biotelemetry: First anniversary

The 4th of April marks the first anniversary of the launch of Animal Biotelemetry, and an occasion to thank the scientific community for your support of the journal. We are thankful to the Associate Editors, who ...

Authors: A Peter Klimley

Tri-axial accelerometers quantify behaviour in the Eurasian badger (Meles meles): towards an automated interpretation of field data

The popularity of tri-axial accelerometer data loggers to quantify animal activity through the analysis of signature traces is increasing. However, there is no consensus on how to process the large data sets t...

Authors: David W McClune, Nikki J Marks, Rory P Wilson, Jonathan DR Houghton, Ian W Montgomery, Natasha E McGowan, Eamonn Gormley and Michael Scantlebury

Three decades of wildlife radio telemetry in India: a review

From 1983, there have been three decades of the application and development of radio telemetry for wildlife studies in India. In this article, we review 82 studies from India, covering 47 species from four tax...

Authors: Bilal Habib, Shivam Shrotriya, Kuppusamy Sivakumar, Priya R Sinha and Vinod B Mathur

Identifying when tagged fishes have been consumed by piscivorous predators: application of multivariate mixture models to movement parameters of telemetered fishes

Consumption of telemetered fishes by piscivores is problematic for telemetry studies because tag detections from the piscivore could introduce bias into the analysis of telemetry data. We illustrate the use of...

Authors: Jason G Romine, Russell W Perry, Samuel V Johnston, Christopher W Fitzer, Stephen W Pagliughi and Aaron R Blake

Effects of radio-tag characteristics and sample size on estimates of apparent survival

Radio-tracking is increasingly used to assess key characteristics of population dynamics. Since in many species re-encounter rates are frequently below 1.0 and vary with time and/or life-history stages, known-...

Authors: Beat Naef-Daenzer and Martin U Grüebler

Testing the VEMCO Positioning System: spatial distribution of the probability of location and the positioning error in a reservoir

Recent improvements in fixed acoustic monitoring receivers allow the tracking of individual aquatic animals over long periods of time with regular fine-scale positions. The VEMCO Positioning System (VPS) is no...

Authors: Romain Roy, Jeremy Beguin, Christine Argillier, Laurence Tissot, Frank Smith, Stephanie Smedbol and Eric De-Oliveira

Observing the unwatchable through acceleration logging of animal behavior

Behavior is an important mechanism of evolution and it is paid for through energy expenditure. Nevertheless, field biologists can rarely observe animals for more than a fraction of their daily activities and a...

Authors: Danielle D Brown, Roland Kays, Martin Wikelski, Rory Wilson and A Peter Klimley

Effects of passive integrated transponder tags on survival and growth of juvenile Atlantic salmon Salmo salar

A laboratory experiment was conducted to assess the potential impacts of surgically implanted 23 and 32 mm passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags on survival, growth, and body condition of juvenile Atlantic...

Authors: Martin H Larsen, Aske N Thorn, Christian Skov and Kim Aarestrup

Comparison of three methods for marking a small floodplain minnow

Evaluation of the movement patterns of small-bodied fish is often hindered by the lack of a suitable long-term mark. We evaluated several techniques for long-term group and individual identification of adult (...

Authors: Brian L Bangs, Matthew R Falcy, Paul D Scheerer and Shaun Clements

A pilot study of deepwater fish movement with respect to marine reserves

The spatial ecology of deepwater demersal teleosts is poorly understood, and this group of fishes has rarely been studied using conventional or electronic means to discern movement and migration. Likewise, the...

Authors: Kevin C Weng

Implications of the variable availability of seasonal foods on the home ranges of black bears, Ursus americanus, in the Sierra Nevada of California

Sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana) seeds and oak (Quercus spp.) acorns are both important fall food sources for a variety of wildlife in the Sierra Nevada, but both have variable mast production and are in decline. S...

Authors: Rachel Mazur, A P Klimley and Karen Folger

Winter and spring diving behavior of bowhead whales relative to prey

Little is known about bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) foraging behavior and what concentrations of prey are required to balance the energetic trade-offs of feeding. We used satellite telemetry, archival depth ...

Authors: Mads Peter Heide-Jørgensen, Kristin L Laidre, Nynne H Nielsen, Rikke G Hansen and Anders Røstad

Juvenile salmonid migratory behavior at the mouth of the Columbia River and within the plume

Early ocean experience is a critical time period that affects juvenile salmonid survival. Understanding juvenile salmonid behavior in nearshore marine environments and how oceanic conditions (such as dynamic r...

Authors: Geoffrey A McMichael, Amanda C Hanson, Ryan A Harnish and Donna M Trott

A rule-based ad hoc method for selecting a bandwidth in kernel home-range analyses

An important issue in conducting kernel home-range analyses is the choice of bandwidth or smoothing parameter. To examine the effects of this choice, telemetry data were collected at high sampling rates (843 t...

Authors: John G Kie

The effects of high detection probabilities on model selection in paired release-recapture studies in the era of electronic tagging studies

Acoustic-tag studies with their high to very high detection rates defy traditional statistical wisdom regarding analysis of tagging studies. Conventional wisdom has been to use a parsimonious model with the fe...

Authors: John R Skalski, Adam G Seaburg and Rebecca A Buchanan

Simple criteria to determine detachment point of towed satellite tags provide first evidence of return migrations of whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) at the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador

Attachment of towed, floating satellite tags to large marine organisms has provided scientists with a wealth of information on the movements of these species. These tags generally are not programmed to detach ...

Authors: Alex R Hearn, Jonathan R Green, Eduardo Espinoza, Cesar Peñaherrera, David Acuña and A Peter Klimley

A comparison of single-suture and double-suture incision closures in seaward-migrating juvenile Chinook salmon implanted with acoustic transmitters: implications for research in river basins containing hydropower structures

Reductions in the size of acoustic transmitters implanted in migrating juvenile salmonids have resulted in the ability to make smaller incisions that may warrant using only a single suture for closure. However...

Authors: Richard S Brown, Katherine A Deters, Katrina V Cook and M Brad Eppard

Performance assessment of bi-directional knotless tissue-closure devices in juvenile Chinook salmon surgically implanted with acoustic transmitters

Acoustic transmitters used in telemetry studies to assess fish migration and survival are often surgically implanted into the coelomic cavity of the fish. While intra-coelomic implantation is a well-establishe...

Authors: Christa M Woodley, Katie A Wagner, Amanda J Bryson and M Brad Eppard

Survival of seaward-migrating PIT and acoustic-tagged juvenile Chinook salmon in the Snake and Columbia Rivers: an evaluation of length-specific tagging effects

Acoustic telemetry is a widely used tool for evaluating the behavior and survival of juvenile salmonids in the Columbia River basin. Thus, it is important to understand how the surgical tagging process and the...

Authors: Richard S Brown, Eric W Oldenburg, Adam G Seaburg, Katrina V Cook, John R Skalski, M Brad Eppard and Katherine A Deters

Habitat selection by bluetongue lizards (Tiliqua, Scincidae) in tropical Australia: a study using GPS telemetry

Emerging global positioning system (GPS) technologies can clarify movement patterns of free-ranging animals in far more detail than has been possible with previous methods. We conducted long-term (mean, 65 day...

Authors: Samantha J Price-Rees, Gregory P Brown and Richard Shine

Recommendations on size and position of surgically and gastrically implanted electronic tags in European silver eel

Information on European silver eel Anguilla anguilla anatomy was collected to gain information on limitations on size and placement of electronic tags.

Authors: Finn Økland and Eva B Thorstad

Tracking animals in freshwater with electronic tags: past, present and future

Considerable technical developments over the past half century have enabled widespread application of electronic tags to the study of animals in the wild, including in freshwater environments. We review the co...

Authors: Steven J Cooke, Jonathan D Midwood, Jason D Thiem, Peter Klimley, Martyn C Lucas, Eva B Thorstad, John Eiler, Chris Holbrook and Brendan C Ebner

Ultraviolet radiation as disinfection for fish surgical tools

Transmitters used in telemetry studies are typically surgically implanted into the coelom of fish. When large numbers of fish are implanted consecutively, as in large telemetry studies, it is common for surgic...

Authors: Ricardo W Walker, Lye Meng Markillie, Alison H Colotelo, David R Geist, Marybeth E Gay, Christa M Woodley, M Brad Eppard and Richard S Brown

Two-year migration of adult female white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) reveals widely separated nursery areas and conservation concerns

Satellite tagging programs have provided detailed information about the migratory patterns of northeastern Pacific white sharks, revealing a seasonal migration between a vast offshore region and coastal aggreg...

Authors: Michael L Domeier and Nicole Nasby-Lucas

Why publish Animal Biotelemetry?

Authors: A Peter Klimley