Estimating the energy expenditure of free-ranging polar bears using tri-axial accelerometers: A validation with doubly labeled water.

ABSTRACT: Measures of energy expenditure can be used to inform animal conservation and management, but methods for measuring the energy expenditure of free-ranging animals have a variety of limitations. Advancements in biologging technologies have enabled the use of dynamic body acceleration derived from accelerometers as a proxy for energy expenditure. Although dynamic body acceleration has been shown to strongly correlate with oxygen consumption in captive animals, it has been validated in only a few studies on free-ranging animals. Here, we use relationships between oxygen consumption and overall dynamic body acceleration in resting and walking polar bears Ursus maritimus and published values for the costs of swimming in polar bears to estimate the total energy expenditure of 6 free-rangin

SUBMITTER: Pagano AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6468055 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature