Accelerometer informed time-energy budgets reveal the importance of temperature to the activity of a wild, arid zone canid

Abstract

Background Globally, arid regions are expanding and becoming hotter and drier with climate change. For medium and large bodied endotherms in the arid zone, the necessity to dissipate heat drives a range of adaptations, from behaviour to anatomy and physiology. Understanding how apex predators negotiate these landscapes and how they balance their energy is important as it may have broad impacts on ecosystem function. Methods We used tri-axial accelerometry (ACC) and GPS data collected from free-ranging dingoes in central Australia to investigate their activity-specific energetics, and activity patterns through time and space. We classified dingo activity into stationary, walking, and running behaviours, and estimated daily energy expenditure via activity-specific time-energy budgets developed using energy expenditure data derived from the literature. We tested whether dingoes behaviourally thermoregulate by modelling ODBA as a function of ambient temperature during the day and night. We used traditional distance measurements (GPS) as well as fine-scale activity (ODBA) data to assess their daily movement patterns. Results We retrieved ACC and GPS data from seven dingoes. Their mass-specific daily energy expenditure was significantly lower in summer (288 kJ kg− 1 day− 1) than winter (495 kJ kg− 1 day− 1; p = 0.03). Overall, dingoes were much less active during summer where 91% of their day was spent stationary in contrast to just 46% during winter. There was a sharp decrease in ODBA with increasing ambient temperature during the day (R2 = 0.59), whereas ODBA increased with increasing Ta at night (R2 = 0.39). Distance and ODBA were positively correlated (R = 0.65) and produced similar crepuscular patterns of activity. Conclusion Our results indicate that ambient temperature may drive the behaviour of dingoes. Seasonal differences of daily energy expenditure in free-ranging eutherian mammals have been found in several species, though this was the first time it has been observed in a wild canid. We conclude that the negative relationship between dingo activity (ODBA) and ambient temperature during the day implies that high heat gain from solar radiation may be a factor limiting diurnal dingo activity in an arid environment.

Environmental correlates of activity and energetics in a wide-ranging social carnivore

“…Based on these findings, high ambient temperatures appeared to have the strongest impacts on activity rates. These results are similar to other cursorial canids including dingoes (Canis dingo) [63] and African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) [64] that exhibited declines in activity rates with increasing ambient temperatures. Wolves are coldadapted [31,65,66] but have higher maintenance costs (i.e., elevated basal metabolic rates) associated with large organ masses to thermoregulate in the cold [67][68][69], which would not be accounted for in either of our measures of DEE [70].…”

Resting disparity in quoll semelparity: examining the sex-linked behaviours of wild roaming northern quolls (Dasyurus hallucatus) during breeding season

“…The average speed was then applied to the duration of the bout to get a predicted distance travelled. DBA has been shown to correlate with distance travelled in dingoes and with speed in humans [ 25 , 33 ]. This process resulted in 24 374 and 48 344 estimated locomotor bouts for females and males, respectively.…”

“…The SOM creation process involved a large dataset of 1 s epochs associated with a number of behaviours (12) that are identified by predictor variables (25) and splitting this dataset into training data (80%) and testing (20%). These predictor variables were chosen based on a sensitivity analysis described in Tatler, Cassey [24], and were means, s.e., signal magnitude area, overall body accelerations (OBA), vectorial body accelerations (VBAs), skews, and axes correlations and are described further in the electronic supplementary material, table S2. The dataset used for this training/testing process contained 2 74 695, 1 s observations of our 25 predictors (approx.…”

“…locomotion/stationary-inactive/stationary-active) [ 23 ]. These devices have shown increasing success in determining fine-scale behaviours in domestic cats and dingoes [ 21 , 24 , 25 ]. Thus, differences between fine-scale behavioural repertoires and activity budgets of male and female northern quolls might be linked with this species’ breeding strategy.…”

Digging into the behaviour of an active hunting predator: arctic fox prey caching events revealed by accelerometry

“…1 ). While running, walking, and motionless events are readily identified in canids [ 52 ], digging is more context-specific. In all digging events, the fox had its head close to the ground and was handling a food item (Fig.…”