Balancing under the high wire; a study into PTT antenna effects on the Common Guillemot Uria aalge
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Animal Behavior, Ecology, Marine Biology, Ethical Issues
- Keywords
- transmitter, aerial, bird, impact, drag, behaviour
- Copyright
- © 2016 Vandenabeele 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
- 2016. Balancing under the high wire; a study into PTT antenna effects on the Common Guillemot Uria aalge. PeerJ Preprints 4:e2035v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2035v1
Abstract
External tags fitted to diving birds can affect them in many ways with the most critical effect being an increase in drag. The effects of transmitters can be even more acute due to the presence of a protruding aerial. The study assesses the impact of PTT antenna on the behaviour and energetics of device-equipped guillemots (Uria aalge) in captivity. Birds with antenna-devices appeared to consume about 20% more energy than non-antenna birds during the descent phase of the dive. The balance of the birds while diving or resting on the water also appeared to be compromised by the presence of an antenna. Based on these first results and because transmitters are one of the most common methods used to track animals, it appears critical to determine what impact these devices, and particularly antenna, can have on their bearers and try minimize it.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.