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Animal lifestyle affects acceptable mass limits for attached tags

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journal contribution
posted on 2021-10-27, 00:00 authored by Rory P. Wilson, Kayleigh A. Rose, Richard Gunner, M D Holton, N J Marks, Nigel BennettNigel Bennett, S H Bell, Joshua P. Twining, J Hesketh, C M Duarte, N Bezodis, M Jezek, M Painter, V Silovsky, M C Crofoot, R Harel, John ArnouldJohn Arnould, Blake Allan, Desley WhissonDesley Whisson, A Alagaili, D. Michael Scantlebury
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.

History

Journal

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Volume

288

Issue

1961

ISSN

0962-8452

eISSN

1471-2954

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal