Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
New Guinea Binatang Research Centre, Madang, Papua New Guinea.
PLoS One. 2022 Dec 30;17(12):e0278641. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0278641. eCollection 2022.
Advances in tracking technology have helped elucidate the movements of the planet's largest and most mobile species, but these animals do not represent faunal diversity as a whole. Tracking a more diverse array of animal species will enable testing of broad ecological and evolutionary hypotheses and aid conservation efforts. Small and sedentary species of the tropics make up a huge part of earth's animal diversity and are therefore key to this endeavor. Here, we investigated whether modern satellite tracking is a viable means for measuring the fine-scale movement patterns of such animals. We fitted five-gram solar-powered transmitters to resident songbirds in the rainforests of New Guinea, and analyzed transmission data collected over four years to evaluate movement detection and performance over time. Based upon the distribution of location fixes, and an observed home range shift by one individual, there is excellent potential to detect small movements of a few kilometers. The method also has clear limitations: total transmission periods were often short and punctuated by lapses; precision and accuracy of location fixes was limited and variable between study sites. However, impending reductions in transmitter size and price will alleviate many issues, further expanding options for tracking earth's faunal diversity.
追踪技术的进步帮助阐明了地球上最大和最具移动性的物种的运动轨迹，但这些动物并不能代表整个动物群的多样性。追踪更多样化的动物物种将能够检验广泛的生态和进化假设，并有助于保护工作。热带地区的小型和定居性物种构成了地球动物多样性的巨大部分，因此是这项工作的关键。在这里，我们研究了现代卫星追踪是否是衡量这些动物精细运动模式的可行手段。我们在新几内亚的雨林中为常驻鸣禽安装了五克太阳能发射器，并分析了四年收集的传输数据，以评估随着时间的推移对运动的检测和性能。基于位置固定的分布，以及一个个体的观察到的栖息地范围变化，有很好的潜力可以检测到几公里的小运动。该方法也有明显的局限性：总传输时间通常很短，并且会被中断；位置固定的精度和准确性在不同的研究地点之间有限且可变。然而，即将减少的发射器尺寸和价格将缓解许多问题，进一步扩大了追踪地球动物多样性的选择。
