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Drivers of daily movement patterns affecting an endangered vulture flight activity.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:The development of satellite tracking technology enables the gathering of huge amounts of accurate data on animal movements over measured time intervals, to reveal essential information about species' patterns of spatial use. This information is especially important in optimizing the design of conservation and management strategies for endangered species. In this study, we analysed the main drivers of daily patterns in the flight activity of the threatened Bearded Vulture Gypaetus barbatus. We studied 19 Bearded Vultures tagged with solar-powered GPS transmitters from 2006 to 2016 in the Pyrenees (Spain). We assessed the relative influence of external factors (season and daylight time) and internal factors (sex, breeding season and territorial status) on their daily activity behaviour by computing mean hourly distance travelled, maximum displacement and cumulative distance travelled per hour. RESULTS:Our findings showed a clear difference in all the estimators between territorial and non-territorial (floating) members of the population, showing that non-territorial individuals spent much longer in flight and travelled larger distances per day. We detected an important influence of daylight time and season on the daily rhythms of Bearded Vultures; flight activity increased during the last three quarters of daylight and was greatest in the spring. Breeding period and sex had also an effect on the maximum displacement and cumulative distance travelled. Individuals flew more during the breeding period and females tended to exhibit greater cumulative and maximum distances per hour than males regardless of breeding season. CONCLUSIONS:Pyrenean Bearded Vultures flight daily activity was strongly influenced by daylight time, season, and territorial status, while individual sex and breeding season showed a milder effect on the birds' movement behaviour. This study gives a novel insight into how external factors act as main drivers of the daily flight activity pattern of a long-lived avian scavenger.

SUBMITTER: Garcia-Jimenez R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6162909 | biostudies-other | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Drivers of daily movement patterns affecting an endangered vulture flight activity.

García-Jiménez Ruth R Pérez-García Juan M JM Margalida Antoni A

BMC ecology 20180929 1

<h4>Background</h4>The development of satellite tracking technology enables the gathering of huge amounts of accurate data on animal movements over measured time intervals, to reveal essential information about species' patterns of spatial use. This information is especially important in optimizing the design of conservation and management strategies for endangered species. In this study, we analysed the main drivers of daily patterns in the flight activity of the threatened Bearded Vulture Gypa ...[more]

PMID: 30268111

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Project description:Abstract Tethered flies allow studies of biomechanics and electrophysiology of flight control. We performed microelectrode recordings of spikes in an indirect flight muscle (the dorsal longitudinal muscle, DLMa) coupled with acoustic analysis of wing beat frequency (WBF) via microphone signals. Simultaneous electrophysiological recording of direct and indirect flight muscles has been technically challenging; however, the WBF is thought to reflect in a one-to-one relationship with spiking activity in a subset of direct flight muscles, including muscle m1b. Therefore, our approach enables systematic mutational analysis for changes in temporal features of electrical activity of motor neurons innervating subsets of direct and indirect flight muscles. Here, we report the consequences of specific ion channel disruptions on the spiking activity of myogenic DLMs (firing at ?5 Hz) and the corresponding WBF (?200 Hz). We examined mutants of the genes enconding: 1) voltage-gated Ca(2+) channels (cacophony, cac), 2) Ca(2+)-activated K(+) channels (slowpoke, slo), and 3) voltage-gated K(+) channels (Shaker, Sh) and their auxiliary subunits (Hyperkinetic, Hk and quiver, qvr). We found flight initiation in response to an air puff was severely disrupted in both cac and slo mutants. However, once initiated, slo flight was largely unaltered, whereas cac displayed disrupted DLM firing rates and WBF. Sh, Hk, and qvr mutants were able to maintain normal DLM firing rates, despite increased WBF. Notably, defects in the auxiliary subunits encoded by Hk and qvr could lead to distinct consequences, that is, disrupted DLM firing rhythmicity, not observed in Sh. Our mutant analysis of direct and indirect flight muscle activities indicates that the two motor activity patterns may be independently modified by specific ion channel mutations, and that this approach can be extended to other dipteran species and additional motor programs, such as electroconvulsive stimulation-induced seizures.

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Drivers of daily movement patterns affecting an endangered vulture flight activity.

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Drivers of daily movement patterns affecting an endangered vulture flight activity.

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