Utility of time-lapse photography in studies of seabird ecology.
Marine ecosystems are heavily influenced by a wide range of human-related impacts, and thus monitoring is essential to preserve and manage these sensitive habitats. Seabirds are considered important bioindicators of the oceans, but accessing breeding populations can be difficult, expensive and time...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:0e46e424b98943118bce9820f4a91b2c 2023-05-15T18:07:12+02:00 Utility of time-lapse photography in studies of seabird ecology. Federico De Pascalis Philip M Collins Jonathan A Green 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0208995 https://doaj.org/article/0e46e424b98943118bce9820f4a91b2c EN eng Public Library of Science (PLoS) https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0208995 https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203 1932-6203 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0208995 https://doaj.org/article/0e46e424b98943118bce9820f4a91b2c PLoS ONE, Vol 13, Iss 12, p e0208995 (2018) Medicine R Science Q article 2018 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0208995 2022-12-31T10:38:19Z Marine ecosystems are heavily influenced by a wide range of human-related impacts, and thus monitoring is essential to preserve and manage these sensitive habitats. Seabirds are considered important bioindicators of the oceans, but accessing breeding populations can be difficult, expensive and time consuming. New technologies have been employed to facilitate data collection on seabirds that can reduce costs and minimize disturbance. Among these, the use of time-lapse photography is a potentially effective way to reduce researcher effort, while collecting valuable information on key ecological parameters. However, the feasibility of this approach remains uncertain. Here, we assessed the use of time-lapse photography as a tool for estimating foraging behaviour from breeding seabirds, and evaluate ways forward for this method. We deployed cameras in front of active nests at a colony of black-legged kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) during two breeding seasons, 5 nests in 2013 and 5 in 2014, taking pictures every 4 minutes. A subsample of monitored individuals were also equipped with accelerometers. Approximately 100,000 frames, covering incubation and chick-rearing periods, were analysed. Estimates of foraging trip duration from images were positively correlated with accelerometry estimates (R2 = 0.967). Equal partitioning of effort between pairs, predation events, nest attendance patterns and variation in trip metrics with breeding stage were also identified. Our results suggest that time-lapse photography is potentially a useful tool for assessing foraging trip duration and other fine-scale nesting ecology parameters as well as for assessing the effect of bio-logging devices on seabird foraging behaviour. Nevertheless, the time investment to manually extract data from images was high, and the process to set up cameras was not straightforward. To encourage wide use of time-lapse photography in seabird ecology, we thus provide guidelines for camera deployment and we suggest a need for further development of automated ... Article in Journal/Newspaper rissa tridactyla Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles PLOS ONE 13 12 e0208995 |
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Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
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language |
English |
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Medicine R Science Q |
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Medicine R Science Q Federico De Pascalis Philip M Collins Jonathan A Green Utility of time-lapse photography in studies of seabird ecology. |
topic_facet |
Medicine R Science Q |
description |
Marine ecosystems are heavily influenced by a wide range of human-related impacts, and thus monitoring is essential to preserve and manage these sensitive habitats. Seabirds are considered important bioindicators of the oceans, but accessing breeding populations can be difficult, expensive and time consuming. New technologies have been employed to facilitate data collection on seabirds that can reduce costs and minimize disturbance. Among these, the use of time-lapse photography is a potentially effective way to reduce researcher effort, while collecting valuable information on key ecological parameters. However, the feasibility of this approach remains uncertain. Here, we assessed the use of time-lapse photography as a tool for estimating foraging behaviour from breeding seabirds, and evaluate ways forward for this method. We deployed cameras in front of active nests at a colony of black-legged kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) during two breeding seasons, 5 nests in 2013 and 5 in 2014, taking pictures every 4 minutes. A subsample of monitored individuals were also equipped with accelerometers. Approximately 100,000 frames, covering incubation and chick-rearing periods, were analysed. Estimates of foraging trip duration from images were positively correlated with accelerometry estimates (R2 = 0.967). Equal partitioning of effort between pairs, predation events, nest attendance patterns and variation in trip metrics with breeding stage were also identified. Our results suggest that time-lapse photography is potentially a useful tool for assessing foraging trip duration and other fine-scale nesting ecology parameters as well as for assessing the effect of bio-logging devices on seabird foraging behaviour. Nevertheless, the time investment to manually extract data from images was high, and the process to set up cameras was not straightforward. To encourage wide use of time-lapse photography in seabird ecology, we thus provide guidelines for camera deployment and we suggest a need for further development of automated ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Federico De Pascalis Philip M Collins Jonathan A Green |
author_facet |
Federico De Pascalis Philip M Collins Jonathan A Green |
author_sort |
Federico De Pascalis |
title |
Utility of time-lapse photography in studies of seabird ecology. |
title_short |
Utility of time-lapse photography in studies of seabird ecology. |
title_full |
Utility of time-lapse photography in studies of seabird ecology. |
title_fullStr |
Utility of time-lapse photography in studies of seabird ecology. |
title_full_unstemmed |
Utility of time-lapse photography in studies of seabird ecology. |
title_sort |
utility of time-lapse photography in studies of seabird ecology. |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0208995 https://doaj.org/article/0e46e424b98943118bce9820f4a91b2c |
genre |
rissa tridactyla |
genre_facet |
rissa tridactyla |
op_source |
PLoS ONE, Vol 13, Iss 12, p e0208995 (2018) |
op_relation |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0208995 https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203 1932-6203 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0208995 https://doaj.org/article/0e46e424b98943118bce9820f4a91b2c |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0208995 |
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PLOS ONE |
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13 |
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12 |
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