Ordiz, Andrés
- Norwegian University of Life Sciences
Abstract
BackgroundUnderstanding animal movement facilitates better management and conservation. The link between movement and physiology holds clues to the basic drivers of animal behaviours. In bears, heart rate increases with the metabolic rate during the active phase. Their movement and heart rate change at seasonal and daily scales, and can also depend on environmental factors. Their behaviour is, therefore, flexible in activity patterns with high individual variations. The aim of this study was to establish the relationship between heart rate and distance travelled, and test whether this relationship was influenced by environmental (e.g., time of year and time of day) and biological (e.g., reproductive status, sex, body mass and age of the bears) factors. We analysed data of distance travelled and heart rate of 15 GPS-collared brown bears, both males and females, equipped with cardiac loggers in the south of Sweden in 2014-2017.ResultsHeart rate increased with distances travelled exceeding 50 m in an hour, but this correlation depended on the day-of-year with higher heart rate in August than in May. Bears accompanied by cubs had lower heart rate than solitary bears especially in May. When movement was minimum (
Keywords
Distance travelled; GPS positions; Cardiac bio-logger; Seasonal variation; Reproductive status
Published in
Animal Biotelemetry
2019, volume: 7, number: 1, article number: 18
SLU Authors
Arnemo, Jon
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences
- Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
UKÄ Subject classification
Ecology
Zoology
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40317-019-0181-7
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/103468