The application of accelerometers to investigate flight performance of free-living pied flycatchers during breeding season – a case study in Vombs fure, southern Sweden
(2021) BION02 20202Degree Projects in Biology
- Abstract
- Bird flight behaviors have been an interesting topic for many years, among which researchers have focused mostly on detailed aerodynamics of flight and more general aspects such as migration strategies. The recent development of accelerometers which could be easily attached to animals has speeded up the investigation of animal movements. Different behaviors could be categorized, and energy consumption could be estimated through the high-resolution acceleration data. The pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), which is the focal species in this study, is the commonest flycatcher in Sweden. Their impressive flight behaviors and preference for nest boxes makes them a good and easy species to study. We attached 12 custom-designed accelerometers... (More)
- Bird flight behaviors have been an interesting topic for many years, among which researchers have focused mostly on detailed aerodynamics of flight and more general aspects such as migration strategies. The recent development of accelerometers which could be easily attached to animals has speeded up the investigation of animal movements. Different behaviors could be categorized, and energy consumption could be estimated through the high-resolution acceleration data. The pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), which is the focal species in this study, is the commonest flycatcher in Sweden. Their impressive flight behaviors and preference for nest boxes makes them a good and easy species to study. We attached 12 custom-designed accelerometers to 31 individuals of pied flycatchers from a breeding population in southern Sweden. The flight sections were identified using a custom written Matlab script, based on empirically set thresholds. We investigated their flight patterns during breeding season and found that they were very active during the experiment and would prefer flights shorter than 10 seconds. Statistical methods were applied to test the difference in wing morphology and flight performance between sexes, and the relationship between wing morphology and flight performance. We used Vectorial Dynamic Body Acceleration (VeDBA) as a proxy of energy expenditure during flights, which was one of the attributes related to flight performance. We found that males have significantly longer wingspan and larger wing area, resulting in significantly lower wing loading, but apart from that no other significant results were detected. The two sexes shared similar mean flight duration and flight proportion, which indicated that males and females provided similar amount of parental care. The difference in wing morphology might not be big enough to affect their flight performance. The flight performance of the parents with different clutch sizes did not differ either, suggesting that the parents might reserve some energy instead of working to their limits when feeding young. It is innovative to apply accelerometers on small free-flying passerines to study their flight behavior in daily life. We hope the methods and discussions in this study could provide inspiration for future studies. (Less)
- Popular Abstract
- Observing breeding pied flycatchers’ daily life through accelerometers
Bird flight has been an interesting topic for decades. To closely observe and investigate birds’ flight behaviors in their secret life, we need to rely on a newly developed technological ap-proach: bio-logging. Loggers recording different types of parameters have been attached to animals, among which accelerometer, which records velocity change over time, could be used to identify animal behaviors and lead to interesting topics in relation to activity rhythm and energy allocation. We were here interested in the flight performance of pied flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca) during breeding season since flycatchers are known for their maneu-vering flights during foraging.... (More) - Observing breeding pied flycatchers’ daily life through accelerometers
Bird flight has been an interesting topic for decades. To closely observe and investigate birds’ flight behaviors in their secret life, we need to rely on a newly developed technological ap-proach: bio-logging. Loggers recording different types of parameters have been attached to animals, among which accelerometer, which records velocity change over time, could be used to identify animal behaviors and lead to interesting topics in relation to activity rhythm and energy allocation. We were here interested in the flight performance of pied flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca) during breeding season since flycatchers are known for their maneu-vering flights during foraging. The pied flycatcher parents of day-7 chicks were equipped with miniature accelerometers for two hours. Their flight patterns, the sexual differences in wing morphology and flight performance, the relationship between wing morphology and flight performance, and the efforts invested into offspring feeding were investigated in our study.
Flight performances in breeding season
During the experiment, the flycatchers spent about 12% of their time flying. 99% of the flight events were shorter than 10 seconds. The duration of a single flight averaged 3 seconds, and the distance cov-ered was in most cases 10-20 meters. The birds could reach an average peak acceleration of 3.19g over all identified flights. These figures reflected the possible movements of the pied flycatchers in deep woods: predating on ground-dwelling caterpillars, spiders, and beetles instead of making flycatching. We also calculated the total flight distance of an adult parent in a day, which was on average 77 kilo-metres.
Relationship between sex, wing morphology, and flight performances
Males were detected to have significantly longer wingspan and lower wing loading, but apart from these no other significant results were found. The attributes we took into account which could reflect flight performance include proportion of flights, averaged duration of flights, and energy consumption rate (represented by a derived dynamic acceleration, VeDBA). No sexual difference was detected in either of the flight performance attributes. Wing shape (i.e., aspect ratio) and wing loading did not show in-fluence on flight performances. The results suggested that the parental investments (measured as amount of flight) offered by the two sexes were similar during this breeding stage, and the influence on their flight ability caused by the minor difference in wing attributes might have been possible for the birds to compensate for. In addition, the parental care (measured as amount of flight) in different-sized broods were almost the same, but the offspring still gained similar weight from day 7 to 12, indicating that the parents might increase their beak load (the amount of food brought back on each visit to the nest) to guarantee their offspring enough food with the same amount of flight.
In the future, it would be very informative to keep pied flycatchers in an aviary to enable researchers to film the flights and relate recordings of flight behaviours to the real-time accelerations. It is also im-portant to validate the relationship between acceleration and energy consumption in small passerines like this.
Master’s Degree Project in Biology 45 credits 2021
Department of Biology, Lund University
Advisor: Per Henningsson & Anders Hedenström
Department of biology, Lund University (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9050542
- author
- Liang, Shujie
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- BION02 20202
- year
- 2021
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- language
- English
- id
- 9050542
- date added to LUP
- 2021-06-07 14:50:55
- date last changed
- 2021-06-07 14:50:55
@misc{9050542,
abstract = {{Bird flight behaviors have been an interesting topic for many years, among which researchers have focused mostly on detailed aerodynamics of flight and more general aspects such as migration strategies. The recent development of accelerometers which could be easily attached to animals has speeded up the investigation of animal movements. Different behaviors could be categorized, and energy consumption could be estimated through the high-resolution acceleration data. The pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), which is the focal species in this study, is the commonest flycatcher in Sweden. Their impressive flight behaviors and preference for nest boxes makes them a good and easy species to study. We attached 12 custom-designed accelerometers to 31 individuals of pied flycatchers from a breeding population in southern Sweden. The flight sections were identified using a custom written Matlab script, based on empirically set thresholds. We investigated their flight patterns during breeding season and found that they were very active during the experiment and would prefer flights shorter than 10 seconds. Statistical methods were applied to test the difference in wing morphology and flight performance between sexes, and the relationship between wing morphology and flight performance. We used Vectorial Dynamic Body Acceleration (VeDBA) as a proxy of energy expenditure during flights, which was one of the attributes related to flight performance. We found that males have significantly longer wingspan and larger wing area, resulting in significantly lower wing loading, but apart from that no other significant results were detected. The two sexes shared similar mean flight duration and flight proportion, which indicated that males and females provided similar amount of parental care. The difference in wing morphology might not be big enough to affect their flight performance. The flight performance of the parents with different clutch sizes did not differ either, suggesting that the parents might reserve some energy instead of working to their limits when feeding young. It is innovative to apply accelerometers on small free-flying passerines to study their flight behavior in daily life. We hope the methods and discussions in this study could provide inspiration for future studies.}},
author = {{Liang, Shujie}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{The application of accelerometers to investigate flight performance of free-living pied flycatchers during breeding season – a case study in Vombs fure, southern Sweden}},
year = {{2021}},
}