Characterizing the suckling behavior by video and 3D-accelerometry in humpback whale calves on a breeding ground
Getting maternal milk through nursing is vital for all newborn mammals. Despite its importance, nursing has been poorly documented in humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae). Nursing is difficult to observe underwater without disturbing the whales and is usually impossible to observe from a ship. W...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:a947ab4c61ff4f7aa96cd45d919c25cd 2023-08-27T04:09:54+02:00 Characterizing the suckling behavior by video and 3D-accelerometry in humpback whale calves on a breeding ground Maevatiana N. Ratsimbazafindranahaka Chloé Huetz Aristide Andrianarimisa Joy S. Reidenberg Anjara Saloma Olivier Adam Isabelle Charrier 2022-02-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12945 https://doaj.org/article/a947ab4c61ff4f7aa96cd45d919c25cd EN eng PeerJ Inc. https://peerj.com/articles/12945.pdf https://peerj.com/articles/12945/ https://doaj.org/toc/2167-8359 doi:10.7717/peerj.12945 2167-8359 https://doaj.org/article/a947ab4c61ff4f7aa96cd45d919c25cd PeerJ, Vol 10, p e12945 (2022) Automatic identification Breeding area Mother-calf interaction Multi-sensor tag Nursing Suckling Medicine R article 2022 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12945 2023-08-06T00:47:05Z Getting maternal milk through nursing is vital for all newborn mammals. Despite its importance, nursing has been poorly documented in humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae). Nursing is difficult to observe underwater without disturbing the whales and is usually impossible to observe from a ship. We attempted to observe nursing from the calf’s perspective by placing CATS cam tags on three humpback whale calves in the Sainte Marie channel, Madagascar, Indian Ocean, during the breeding seasons. CATS cam tags are animal-borne multi-sensor tags equipped with a video camera, a hydrophone, and several auxiliary sensors (including a 3-axis accelerometer, a 3-axis magnetometer, and a depth sensor). The use of multi-sensor tags minimized potential disturbance from human presence. A total of 10.52 h of video recordings were collected with the corresponding auxiliary data. Video recordings were manually analyzed and correlated with the auxiliary data, allowing us to extract different kinematic features including the depth rate, speed, Fluke Stroke Rate (FSR), Overall Body Dynamic Acceleration (ODBA), pitch, roll, and roll rate. We found that suckling events lasted 18.8 ± 8.8 s on average (N = 34) and were performed mostly during dives. Suckling events represented 1.7% of the total observation time. During suckling, the calves were visually estimated to be at a 30–45° pitch angle relative to the midline of their mother’s body and were always observed rolling either to the right or to the left. In our auxiliary dataset, we confirmed that suckling behavior was primarily characterized by a high average absolute roll and additionally we also found that it was likely characterized by a high average FSR and a low average speed. Kinematic features were used for supervised machine learning in order to subsequently detect suckling behavior automatically. Our study is a proof of method on which future investigations can build upon. It opens new opportunities for further investigation of suckling behavior in humpback whales and the ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Humpback Whale Megaptera novaeangliae Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Indian PeerJ 10 e12945 |
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op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
Automatic identification Breeding area Mother-calf interaction Multi-sensor tag Nursing Suckling Medicine R |
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Automatic identification Breeding area Mother-calf interaction Multi-sensor tag Nursing Suckling Medicine R Maevatiana N. Ratsimbazafindranahaka Chloé Huetz Aristide Andrianarimisa Joy S. Reidenberg Anjara Saloma Olivier Adam Isabelle Charrier Characterizing the suckling behavior by video and 3D-accelerometry in humpback whale calves on a breeding ground |
topic_facet |
Automatic identification Breeding area Mother-calf interaction Multi-sensor tag Nursing Suckling Medicine R |
description |
Getting maternal milk through nursing is vital for all newborn mammals. Despite its importance, nursing has been poorly documented in humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae). Nursing is difficult to observe underwater without disturbing the whales and is usually impossible to observe from a ship. We attempted to observe nursing from the calf’s perspective by placing CATS cam tags on three humpback whale calves in the Sainte Marie channel, Madagascar, Indian Ocean, during the breeding seasons. CATS cam tags are animal-borne multi-sensor tags equipped with a video camera, a hydrophone, and several auxiliary sensors (including a 3-axis accelerometer, a 3-axis magnetometer, and a depth sensor). The use of multi-sensor tags minimized potential disturbance from human presence. A total of 10.52 h of video recordings were collected with the corresponding auxiliary data. Video recordings were manually analyzed and correlated with the auxiliary data, allowing us to extract different kinematic features including the depth rate, speed, Fluke Stroke Rate (FSR), Overall Body Dynamic Acceleration (ODBA), pitch, roll, and roll rate. We found that suckling events lasted 18.8 ± 8.8 s on average (N = 34) and were performed mostly during dives. Suckling events represented 1.7% of the total observation time. During suckling, the calves were visually estimated to be at a 30–45° pitch angle relative to the midline of their mother’s body and were always observed rolling either to the right or to the left. In our auxiliary dataset, we confirmed that suckling behavior was primarily characterized by a high average absolute roll and additionally we also found that it was likely characterized by a high average FSR and a low average speed. Kinematic features were used for supervised machine learning in order to subsequently detect suckling behavior automatically. Our study is a proof of method on which future investigations can build upon. It opens new opportunities for further investigation of suckling behavior in humpback whales and the ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Maevatiana N. Ratsimbazafindranahaka Chloé Huetz Aristide Andrianarimisa Joy S. Reidenberg Anjara Saloma Olivier Adam Isabelle Charrier |
author_facet |
Maevatiana N. Ratsimbazafindranahaka Chloé Huetz Aristide Andrianarimisa Joy S. Reidenberg Anjara Saloma Olivier Adam Isabelle Charrier |
author_sort |
Maevatiana N. Ratsimbazafindranahaka |
title |
Characterizing the suckling behavior by video and 3D-accelerometry in humpback whale calves on a breeding ground |
title_short |
Characterizing the suckling behavior by video and 3D-accelerometry in humpback whale calves on a breeding ground |
title_full |
Characterizing the suckling behavior by video and 3D-accelerometry in humpback whale calves on a breeding ground |
title_fullStr |
Characterizing the suckling behavior by video and 3D-accelerometry in humpback whale calves on a breeding ground |
title_full_unstemmed |
Characterizing the suckling behavior by video and 3D-accelerometry in humpback whale calves on a breeding ground |
title_sort |
characterizing the suckling behavior by video and 3d-accelerometry in humpback whale calves on a breeding ground |
publisher |
PeerJ Inc. |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12945 https://doaj.org/article/a947ab4c61ff4f7aa96cd45d919c25cd |
geographic |
Indian |
geographic_facet |
Indian |
genre |
Humpback Whale Megaptera novaeangliae |
genre_facet |
Humpback Whale Megaptera novaeangliae |
op_source |
PeerJ, Vol 10, p e12945 (2022) |
op_relation |
https://peerj.com/articles/12945.pdf https://peerj.com/articles/12945/ https://doaj.org/toc/2167-8359 doi:10.7717/peerj.12945 2167-8359 https://doaj.org/article/a947ab4c61ff4f7aa96cd45d919c25cd |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12945 |
container_title |
PeerJ |
container_volume |
10 |
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e12945 |
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