Life on the treadmill: the cost of the daily routine in birds

Animal-attached recording devices can be used to address many ecological issues. This study considers the measurement of acceleration, which can provide information on two key elements of an animal’s biology; (a) its energy expenditure and (b) patterns of behaviour through time. In order to use accelerometry to allude to an animal’s energy expenditure, the relationship between energy expenditure and acceleration must be established for the species of interest. This work describes this procedure for seven species using gas respirometry at Buenos Aires Zoo, where correlations between acceleration and oxygen consumption had coefficients (R2) of 0.73-0.99. The elements of accelerometry that enable the identification of behaviour are also outlined, using examples of animal behaviour including washing in cormorants, feeding in predators and grazers, head-butting in mountain goats, and locomotion in a range of captive and free-ranging animals in marine and terrestrial environments.