College of Science Postgraduate Seminar Series 19th August 2014

College of Science Postgraduate Seminar Series - Summer 2014 

19th August 2014 - 1pm - Zoology Museum (Wallace)

The ecological determinants of baboon troop movements at local and continental scales

Caspian Johnson

(PhD student, Swansea University, UK)

Caspian is a final year PhD student under the supervision of Andy King and Dan Forman. He studied Zoology as an undergraduate here at Swansea University, obtaining a first class honours in 2011. He began his PhD by spending a year in Tanzania collecting data with the Ugalla Primate Project.  

How an animal moves through its environment directly impacts its survival, reproduction, and thus biological fitness. A basic measure of describing how an individual (or group) travels through its environment is Day Path Length (DPL), i.e., the distance travelled in a 24-hour period. Updating a classic study by Dunbar (1992), we investigate the ecological determinants of mean DPL for 39 baboon (Papio spp.) troops across 20 different populations. We find that a measure of plant productivity, anthropogenic influence and local primate richness all have a significant and negative effect on DPL, whilst group size has a significant positive effect. These results are in accordance with previous work indicating baboons show variation in DPLs as a consequence of ecological dissimilarity across their range. We then explore DPLs and Movement Trajectories (MTs: the speed and tortuosity of travel) for yellow baboons (Papio cynocephalus) in the Issa Valley of western Tanzania. We find that Issa baboons travel further than our inter-population model predicts, and troops moved significantly slower, and over shorter distances, on warmer days.  We also found that the baboons moved significantly slower and took more direct travel routes when fruit was abundant, but fruit abundance did not predict total variation in DPL and we did not find any seasonal effects upon DPL or MT. Overall, this study emphasises the ability of baboons to adapt their ranging behaviour contributing to their overall success as a genus, and highlights how investigations of movement patterns at different spatial scales can provide a fuller investigation of the ecological determinants of movement.

College of Science Postgraduate Seminar Series 12th August 2014

College of Science Postgraduate Seminar Series - Summer 2014 

12th August 2014 - 1pm - Zoology Museum (Wallace)

Talk 1

Harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) at sea: Exploring area usage in a central place forager.

William Kay

(Masters student, Swansea University, UK)

Central place foragers such as harbour seals inherently display tendencies to return to fixed areas for a variety of reasons including pupping, moulting and resting at their chosen haul-out sites. Despite this need to return to a fixed location, individuals regularly forage over extensive spatial and temporal scales, spending many days at sea and travelling upwards of 60km offshore. 

Optimal foraging theories suggest however that these movements are not limitless and instead, are restricted due to physiological and energetic demands. Thus, classifying and quantifying areas of importance for these organisms is crucial, for both increasing our understanding of their general behaviours and identifying locations where anthropogenic activities, such as off-shore renewable energy or commercial fisheries, should be conducted with particular care. 

Visual tracking of marine mammals at sea is virtually impossible because they spend such a large majority of their time underwater. Most previous studies are primarily based on VHF and satellite-tracking telemetry, both of which have their limitations in accuracy and transmission. This research uses the recent, preferred technique of dead-reckoning, to fix GPS locations at 5 s intervals in order to examine the fine-scale movement of harbour seals at sea.

From these data we hope to attain information about the paths that individuals take in the Wadden Sea, such as overall track lengths and track tortuosity to identify hotspots for foraging activity. The energetic costs of movement at sea are also considered in an effort to describe behaviours according to novel techniques.

Talk 2

What can accelerometry tell us about soaring flight?

Hannah Jane Williams

(PhD student, Swansea University, UK)

Accelerometry has been used to identify behavioural patterns through the quantification of body posture and motion for a range of species moving in different habitat types. The use of acceleration data to quantify different flight modes, e.g. soaring versus gliding, is however more problematic, as changes in acceleration may also arise if a bird is “pulling g”. This study uses Daily Diary tags, with tri-axial accelerometers, to collect high-resolution data on the flight performance of the Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus), a soaring species that relies on slope lift and thermals to gain height to search of resources. Unlike many of the accelerometer devices used in the study of animal movement, these tags are also equipped with tri-axial magnetometers and pressure sensors, allowing flight to be categorized into gliding and soaring, and the nature of the lift (i.e. thermal or wind-driven) to be identified . We examine patterns in bird posture and vectorial dynamic body acceleration (VeDBA) specific to different phases of flight and so devise a classification tree to allow others to identify these using accelerometry alone. We investigate to what extent information can be extracted from accelerometry regarding soaring performance, including parameters such as bank angle and glide speed.

College of Science Postgraduate Seminar Series 5th August 2014

College of Science Postgraduate Seminar Series - Summer 2014 

5th August 2014 - 1pm - Zoology Museum (Wallace)

Talk 1

Assessing phenotypic and genetic divergence in brown trout (Salmo trutta) in Welsh rivers

Chloe Robinson

(Masters student, Swansea University, UK)

Habitat alteration and fragmentation through anthropogenic activities is one of the primary causes of freshwater fish declines worldwide. There has been a significant increase in the numbers of barriers in rivers worldwide in recent years, particularly hydroelectric structures, which provide one fifth of the world’s electricity. Migratory species such as brown trout (Salmo trutta) are adversely affected by loss of connectivity as barriers block migration pathways and cause flow alterations, habitat degradation, increase in sedimentation and loss of spawning grounds. Ultimately, population isolation can occur within heavily impounded rivers as barrier presence causes a one-way gene flow from upstream to downstream. Isolated upstream populations that receive limited gene flow from downstream populations can suffer inbreeding and inbreeding depression and loss of fitness. There is also evidence of morphological divergence in response to barrier presence as fish exhibit local adaptations to changing environmental conditions

Talk 2

Quantifying the energetic costs of flight in the wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans)

Andrew 'Pedro' Roberts

(Masters student, Swansea University, UK)

As central-place foragers albatrosses undertake trips of many hundreds of km, over multiple
days, in search of food and are renowned for their ability to travel great distances without
flapping by a technique known as ‘dynamic soaring’. But what are the energetic savings
of these extended and tortuous flight tracks as compared to direct paths travelled by
flapping? Visual observation of such flights is difficult, given the distances travelled, so GPS
tracking was used to ascertain birds’ location at 10-minute intervals, providing coarse-
scale information of flight paths. Accelerometry and magnetometry data recorded at 40
Hz (40 times per second) were also collected to gain insight into body movement, energy
expenditure and compass heading at an extremely fine scale. From these data it is hoped
that an indication of the tortuosity of flight tracks may be constructed and, by comparison
of modelled wind vectors against coarse- and fine-scale movements, the energetic costs of
such flight habits quantified.