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A colonial-nesting seabird shows no heart-rate response to drone-based population surveys.
- Source :
- Scientific Reports; 11/5/2022, Vol. 12 Issue 1, p1-10, 10p
- Publication Year :
- 2022
-
Abstract
- Aerial drones are increasingly being used as tools for ecological research and wildlife monitoring in hard-to-access study systems, such as in studies of colonial-nesting birds. Despite their many advantages over traditional survey methods, there remains concerns about possible disturbance effects that standard drone survey protocols may have on bird colonies. There is a particular gap in the study of their influence on physiological measures of stress. We measured heart rates of incubating female common eider ducks (Somateria mollissima) to determine whether our drone-based population survey affected them. To do so, we used heart-rate recorders placed in nests to quantify their heart rate in response to a quadcopter drone flying transects 30 m above the nesting colony. Eider heart rate did not change from baseline (measured in the absence of drone survey flights) by a drone flying at a fixed altitude and varying horizontal distances from the bird. Our findings suggest that carefully planned drone-based surveys of focal species have the potential to be carried out without causing physiological impacts among colonial-nesting eiders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 20452322
- Volume :
- 12
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Scientific Reports
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 160075432
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-22492-7