Département de Biologie Polaire, Centre Scientifique de Monaco, Monaco, Principality of Monaco.
CNRS UMR 7178, IPHC, Université de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France.
PLoS One. 2022 Aug 4;17(8):e0265849. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0265849. eCollection 2022.
An increasing number of marine animals are equipped with biologgers, to study their physiology, behaviour and ecology, often for conservation purposes. To minimise the impacts of biologgers on the animals' welfare, the Refinement principle from the Three Rs framework (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement) urges to continuously test and evaluate new and updated biologging protocols. Here, we propose alternative and promising techniques for emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) capture and on-site logger deployment that aim to mitigate the potential negative impacts of logger deployment on these birds. We equipped adult emperor penguins for short-term (GPS, Time-Depth Recorder (TDR)) and long-term (i.e. planned for one year) deployments (ARGOS platforms, TDR), as well as juvenile emperor penguins for long-term deployments (ARGOS platforms) in the Weddell Sea area where they had not yet been studied. We describe and qualitatively evaluate our protocols for the attachment of biologgers on-site at the colony, the capture of the animals and the recovery of the devices after deployment. We report unprecedented recaptures of long-term equipped adult emperor penguins (50% of equipped individuals recaptured after 290 days). Our data demonstrate that the traditional technique of long-term attachment by gluing the biologgers directly to the back feathers causes excessive feather breakage and the loss of the devices after a few months. We therefore propose an alternative method of attachment for back-mounted devices. This technique led to successful year-round deployments on 37.5% of the equipped juveniles. Finally, we also disclose the first deployments of leg-bracelet mounted TDRs on emperor penguins. Our findings highlight the importance of monitoring potential impacts of biologger deployments on the animals and the need to continue to improve methods to minimize disturbance and enhance performance and results.
越来越多的海洋动物被配备了生物标记器，以研究它们的生理、行为和生态学，通常是出于保护目的。为了将生物标记器对动物福利的影响降到最低，三 R 框架（替代、减少、优化）的优化原则敦促不断测试和评估新的和更新的生物标记协议。在这里，我们提出了替代和有前途的帝企鹅（Aptenodytes forsteri）捕获和现场记录仪部署技术，旨在减轻记录仪部署对这些鸟类的潜在负面影响。我们为成年帝企鹅进行了短期（GPS、时间-深度记录器（TDR））和长期（即计划一年）部署（ARGOS 平台、TDR），以及幼帝企鹅进行了长期部署（ARGOS 平台）在威德尔海地区，这些地区以前没有研究过。我们描述并定性评估了我们在殖民地现场安装生物标记器、捕获动物和部署后回收设备的协议。我们报告了前所未有的长期装备成年帝企鹅的再捕获（50%的装备个体在 290 天后被重新捕获）。我们的数据表明，将生物标记器直接粘在羽毛上的传统长期附着技术会导致过度的羽毛断裂，并在几个月后丢失设备。因此，我们提出了一种替代的背部设备附着方法。这项技术使 37.5%的装备幼鸟成功地进行了全年部署。最后，我们还披露了腿带式 TDR 在帝企鹅上的首次部署。我们的研究结果强调了监测生物标记器部署对动物潜在影响的重要性，以及需要继续改进方法以最小化干扰并提高性能和结果。
