Airflow modelling predicts seabird breeding habitat across islands

Wind is fundamentally related to shelter and flight performance: two factors that are critical for birds at their nest sites. Despite this, airflows have never been fully integrated into models of breeding habitat selection, even for well-studied seabirds. Here, we use computational fluid dynamics to provide the first assessment of whether flow characteristics (including wind speed and turbulence) predict the distribution of seabird colonies, taking common guillemots Uria aalge breeding on Skomer Island as our study system. This demonstrates that occupancy is driven by the need to shelter from both wind and rain/wave action, rather than airflow characteristics alone. Models of airflows and cliff orientation both performed well in predicting high-quality habitat in our study site, identifying 80% of colonies and 93% of avoided sites, as well as 73% of the largest colonies on a neighbouring island. This suggests generality in the mechanisms driving breeding distributions and provides an approach for identifying habitat for seabird reintroductions considering current and projected wind speeds and directions.

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“…Data are available from the Dryad Digital Repository: <http:// dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.h9w0vt4jk> (Lempidakis et al 2021).…”

Section: Author Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Airflow modelling predicts seabird breeding habitat across islands

et al. 2021

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“…Air ows themselves represent dynamic environments and assessing ne-scale dead-reckoned tracks in 3-D may reveal important interactions between animal and airscape and the energetic consequences involved [cf. 49,72,99,100]. Most importantly, although dead-reckoning for iers can incur substantial wind-based drift, GPS-based VP is usually accurate, because of the open sky which enhances signal transmission [13], and this can help correct tracks accordingly.…”

Section: Speed Inaccuracies and Vp Corrected Dead-reckoningmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Often Should Dead-Reckoned Animal Movement Paths be Corrected for Drift?

Gunner

Holton

Scantlebury

et al. 2021

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BackgroundUnderstanding what animals do in time and space is important for a range of ecological questions, however accurate estimates of how animals use space is challenging. Within the use of animal-attached tags, radio telemetry (including the Global Positioning System (GPS)) is typically used to verify an animal’s location periodically. Straight lines are typically drawn between these ‘Verified Positions’ (VPs) so the interpolation of space-use is limited by the temporal- and spatial resolution of the system’s measurement. As such, parameters such as route-taken and distance travelled can be poorly represented when using VP systems alone. Dead-reckoning has been suggested as a technique to improve the accuracy and resolution of reconstructed movement paths, whilst maximising battery life of VP systems. This typically involves deriving travel vectors from motion sensor systems and periodically correcting path dimensions for drift with simultaneously deployed VP systems. How often paths should be corrected for drift, however, has remained unclear.Methods & ResultsHere, we review the utility of dead-reckoning across four contrasting model species using different forms of locomotion (the African lion Panthera leo, the Red-tailed tropicbird Phaethon rubricauda, the Magellanic penguin Spheniscus magellanicus, and the Imperial cormorant Leucocarbo atriceps). Simulations were performed to examine the extent of dead-reckoning error, relative to VPs, as a function of Verified Position correction (VP correction) rate and the effect of this on estimates of distance moved. Dead-reckoning error was greatest for animals travelling within air and water. We demonstrate how sources of measurement error can arise within VP-corrected dead-reckoned tracks and propose advancements to this procedure to maximise dead-reckoning accuracy.ConclusionsWe review the utility of VP-corrected dead-reckoning according to movement type and consider a range of ecological questions that would benefit from dead-reckoning, primarily concerning animal-barrier interactions and foraging strategies.

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“…Airflows themselves represent dynamic environments and assessing finescale dead-reckoned tracks in 3-D may reveal important interactions between animal and airscape and the energetic consequences involved (cf. [49,72,105,106]). Most Fig.…”

Section: External Current Flow Vectors Can Cause the Relation-mentioning

confidence: 99%

How often should dead-reckoned animal movement paths be corrected for drift?

et al. 2021

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Background Understanding what animals do in time and space is important for a range of ecological questions, however accurate estimates of how animals use space is challenging. Within the use of animal-attached tags, radio telemetry (including the Global Positioning System, ‘GPS’) is typically used to verify an animal’s location periodically. Straight lines are typically drawn between these ‘Verified Positions’ (‘VPs’) so the interpolation of space-use is limited by the temporal and spatial resolution of the system’s measurement. As such, parameters such as route-taken and distance travelled can be poorly represented when using VP systems alone. Dead-reckoning has been suggested as a technique to improve the accuracy and resolution of reconstructed movement paths, whilst maximising battery life of VP systems. This typically involves deriving travel vectors from motion sensor systems and periodically correcting path dimensions for drift with simultaneously deployed VP systems. How often paths should be corrected for drift, however, has remained unclear. Methods and results Here, we review the utility of dead-reckoning across four contrasting model species using different forms of locomotion (the African lion Panthera leo, the red-tailed tropicbird Phaethon rubricauda, the Magellanic penguin Spheniscus magellanicus, and the imperial cormorant Leucocarbo atriceps). Simulations were performed to examine the extent of dead-reckoning error, relative to VPs, as a function of Verified Position correction (VP correction) rate and the effect of this on estimates of distance moved. Dead-reckoning error was greatest for animals travelling within air and water. We demonstrate how sources of measurement error can arise within VP-corrected dead-reckoned tracks and propose advancements to this procedure to maximise dead-reckoning accuracy. Conclusions We review the utility of VP-corrected dead-reckoning according to movement type and consider a range of ecological questions that would benefit from dead-reckoning, primarily concerning animal–barrier interactions and foraging strategies.

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Airflow modelling predicts seabird breeding habitat across islands

Cited by 4 publications

References 41 publications

Airflow modelling predicts seabird breeding habitat across islands

Airflow modelling predicts seabird breeding habitat across islands

How Often Should Dead-Reckoned Animal Movement Paths be Corrected for Drift?

How often should dead-reckoned animal movement paths be corrected for drift?

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