Analysis of the optimal duration of behavioral observations based on an automated continuous monitoring system in tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor): is one hour good enough?

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1 Department of Biological Sciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA
2 The Netherlands Institute of Ecology, Wageningen, the Netherlands
3 Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
4 Department of Biology, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada
5 Department of Biology, Davidson College, Davidson, NC, United States
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.1403v3
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Animal Behavior, Zoology, Statistics
Keywords
behavioral sampling, parental care, RFID, optimality, tree swallows
Copyright
© 2015 Lendvai 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
Lendvai AZ, Akçay Ç, Ouyang JQ, Dakin R, Domalik AD, St John PS, Stanback MT, Moore IT, Bonier F. 2015. Analysis of the optimal duration of behavioral observations based on an automated continuous monitoring system in tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor): is one hour good enough? PeerJ PrePrints 3:e1403v3

Abstract

Studies of animal behavior often rely on human observation, which introduces a number of limitations on sampling. Recent developments in automated logging of behaviors make it possible to circumvent some of these problems. Once verified for efficacy and accuracy, these automated systems can be used to determine optimal sampling regimes for behavioral studies. Here, we used a radio-frequency identification (RFID) system to quantify parental effort in a bi-parental songbird species: the tree swallow (Tachycineta bicolor). We found that the accuracy of the RFID monitoring system was similar to that of video-recorded behavioral observations for quantifying parental visits. Using RFID monitoring, we also quantified the optimum duration of sampling periods for male and female parental effort by looking at the relationship between nest visit rates estimated from sampling periods with different durations and the total visit numbers for the day. The optimum sampling duration (the shortest observation time that explained the most variation in total daily visits per unit time) was 1h for both sexes. These results show that RFID and other automated technologies can be used to quantify behavior when human observation is constrained, and the information from these monitoring technologies can be useful for evaluating the efficacy of human observation methods.

Author Comment

This is the final accepted manuscript in press at PLoS One.

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DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.1403v3/supp-1