Photos provide information on age, but not kinship, of Andean bear

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1 Applied Animal Ecology, San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, San Diego, CA, United States
2 Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin – Madison, Madison, WI, United States
3 Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
4 Spectacled Bear Conservation Society, Squamish, BC, Canada
5 Centro de Biodiversidad y Genética, Universidad Mayor de San Simon, Cochabamba, Bolivia
6 Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, United Kingdom
7 Conservation Education, San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, San Diego, CA, United States
8 Current affiliation, We Thrive Global, Reno, Nevada, United States
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.1142v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Animal Behavior, Conservation Biology, Ecology, Zoology
Keywords
Tremarctos ornatus, Andean bear, age estimation, camera traps, natural markings, kinship, noninvasive, Spectacled bear
Copyright
© 2015 Van Horn et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Van Horn RC, Zug B, Appleton RD, Velez-Liendo X, Paisley SL, LaCombe C. 2015. Photos provide information on age, but not kinship, of Andean bear. PeerJ PrePrints 3:e1142v1

Abstract

Using photos of captive Andean bears of known age and pedigree, and photos of wild Andean bear cubs < 6 months old, we evaluated the degree to which visual information may be used to estimate bears’ ages and assess their kinship. We demonstrate that the ages of Andean bear cubs ≤ 6 months old may be estimated from their size relative to their mothers with an average error of < 0.01 ± 13.2 days (SD; n = 14), and that ages of adults ≥ 10 years old may be estimated from the proportion of their nose that is pink with an average error of < 0.01 ± 3.5 years (n = 41). We also show that similarity among the bears’ natural markings, as perceived by humans, is not associated with pedigree kinship among the bears (R2 < 0.001, N = 1,043, p = 0.499). Thus, researchers may use photos of wild Andean bears to estimate the ages of young cubs and older adults, but not to infer their kinship. Given that camera trap photos are one of the most readily available sources of information on large cryptic mammals, we suggest that similar methods be tested for use in other poorly understood species.

Author Comment

This is a revised version of a manuscript that is under review at PeerJ as of 29 May 2015.