Seasonal and diel activity patterns of the endangered taiga bean goose (Anser fabalis fabalis) during the breeding season, monitored with camera traps
Taiga bean goose ( Anser fabalis fabalis ) is an endangered subspecies that breeds sporadically in remote habitats in the arctic and boreal zones. Due to its elusive behaviour, there is a paucity of knowledge on the behaviour of taiga bean goose during the breeding season, and survey methods for mon...
Published in: | PLOS ONE |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , , , , |
Other Authors: | , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2021
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254254 https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254254 |
id |
crplos:10.1371/journal.pone.0254254 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
crplos:10.1371/journal.pone.0254254 2024-05-19T07:28:41+00:00 Seasonal and diel activity patterns of the endangered taiga bean goose (Anser fabalis fabalis) during the breeding season, monitored with camera traps Nykänen, Milaja Pöysä, Hannu Hakkarainen, Sari Rajala, Tuomas Matala, Juho Kunnasranta, Mervi Halliday, William David LukeLEADS research funding provided by the Natural Resources Institute Finland 2021 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254254 https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254254 en eng Public Library of Science (PLoS) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ PLOS ONE volume 16, issue 7, page e0254254 ISSN 1932-6203 journal-article 2021 crplos https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254254 2024-05-01T07:09:32Z Taiga bean goose ( Anser fabalis fabalis ) is an endangered subspecies that breeds sporadically in remote habitats in the arctic and boreal zones. Due to its elusive behaviour, there is a paucity of knowledge on the behaviour of taiga bean goose during the breeding season, and survey methods for monitoring numbers in the breeding areas are lacking. Camera traps are a useful tool for wildlife monitoring, particularly when there is a need for non-invasive methods due to the shy nature of the species. In this study, we tested the use of camera traps to investigate seasonal and diel activity patterns of taiga bean goose in Finland over two successive breeding seasons, 2018 and 2019. We did this by modelling counts of geese from images with generalized linear and additive mixed models. The camera type (cameras placed by experts specialized in bean goose ecology vs randomly placed cameras) did not influence the count of taiga bean goose (p = 0.386). However, the activity varied significantly by region, Julian day, time of day and temperature, with the study site (individual peatland) and year adding substantial random variation and uncertainty in the counts. Altogether, the best fitting model explained nearly 70% of the variation in taiga bean goose activity. The peak in activity occurred about a month later in the southernmost region compared to the more northern regions, which may indicate behaviours related to migration rather than breeding and moulting. Our results show that long-term monitoring with game camera traps provide a potential unobtrusive approach for studying the behavioural patterns of taiga bean goose and can increase our ecological knowledge of this little-known subspecies. The results can be applied to planning of the annual censuses and finding the optimal time frame for their execution. Article in Journal/Newspaper Anser fabalis Arctic taiga PLOS PLOS ONE 16 7 e0254254 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
PLOS |
op_collection_id |
crplos |
language |
English |
description |
Taiga bean goose ( Anser fabalis fabalis ) is an endangered subspecies that breeds sporadically in remote habitats in the arctic and boreal zones. Due to its elusive behaviour, there is a paucity of knowledge on the behaviour of taiga bean goose during the breeding season, and survey methods for monitoring numbers in the breeding areas are lacking. Camera traps are a useful tool for wildlife monitoring, particularly when there is a need for non-invasive methods due to the shy nature of the species. In this study, we tested the use of camera traps to investigate seasonal and diel activity patterns of taiga bean goose in Finland over two successive breeding seasons, 2018 and 2019. We did this by modelling counts of geese from images with generalized linear and additive mixed models. The camera type (cameras placed by experts specialized in bean goose ecology vs randomly placed cameras) did not influence the count of taiga bean goose (p = 0.386). However, the activity varied significantly by region, Julian day, time of day and temperature, with the study site (individual peatland) and year adding substantial random variation and uncertainty in the counts. Altogether, the best fitting model explained nearly 70% of the variation in taiga bean goose activity. The peak in activity occurred about a month later in the southernmost region compared to the more northern regions, which may indicate behaviours related to migration rather than breeding and moulting. Our results show that long-term monitoring with game camera traps provide a potential unobtrusive approach for studying the behavioural patterns of taiga bean goose and can increase our ecological knowledge of this little-known subspecies. The results can be applied to planning of the annual censuses and finding the optimal time frame for their execution. |
author2 |
Halliday, William David LukeLEADS research funding provided by the Natural Resources Institute Finland |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Nykänen, Milaja Pöysä, Hannu Hakkarainen, Sari Rajala, Tuomas Matala, Juho Kunnasranta, Mervi |
spellingShingle |
Nykänen, Milaja Pöysä, Hannu Hakkarainen, Sari Rajala, Tuomas Matala, Juho Kunnasranta, Mervi Seasonal and diel activity patterns of the endangered taiga bean goose (Anser fabalis fabalis) during the breeding season, monitored with camera traps |
author_facet |
Nykänen, Milaja Pöysä, Hannu Hakkarainen, Sari Rajala, Tuomas Matala, Juho Kunnasranta, Mervi |
author_sort |
Nykänen, Milaja |
title |
Seasonal and diel activity patterns of the endangered taiga bean goose (Anser fabalis fabalis) during the breeding season, monitored with camera traps |
title_short |
Seasonal and diel activity patterns of the endangered taiga bean goose (Anser fabalis fabalis) during the breeding season, monitored with camera traps |
title_full |
Seasonal and diel activity patterns of the endangered taiga bean goose (Anser fabalis fabalis) during the breeding season, monitored with camera traps |
title_fullStr |
Seasonal and diel activity patterns of the endangered taiga bean goose (Anser fabalis fabalis) during the breeding season, monitored with camera traps |
title_full_unstemmed |
Seasonal and diel activity patterns of the endangered taiga bean goose (Anser fabalis fabalis) during the breeding season, monitored with camera traps |
title_sort |
seasonal and diel activity patterns of the endangered taiga bean goose (anser fabalis fabalis) during the breeding season, monitored with camera traps |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254254 https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254254 |
genre |
Anser fabalis Arctic taiga |
genre_facet |
Anser fabalis Arctic taiga |
op_source |
PLOS ONE volume 16, issue 7, page e0254254 ISSN 1932-6203 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254254 |
container_title |
PLOS ONE |
container_volume |
16 |
container_issue |
7 |
container_start_page |
e0254254 |
_version_ |
1799475503289073664 |