Another one is the use of a GPS collar in combination with inertial measurement units to determine cheetah hunting speeds by Wilson et al in 2013.

Hi Paul, 

Interesting question. Are you interested in hearing about case studies that are investigating these sensor integrations? If so, I'm happy to share a number of examples I know of.  

This article in the WILDLABS.NET resources area might have a few additions for the list. It profiles a lot of different examples of conservation tech (and includes links and videos), so it's worth checking out. 

A new addition to the list I've spotted is a magnetometer - part of a slew of sensors UC Santa Cruz has added to a SMART collar they've developed for Pumas. From the aforementioned article:

UC Santa Cruz: SMART Collar 

Scientists at UC Santa Cruz have developed a Species Movement, Acceleration and Radio Tracking (SMART) Collar to study puma movements and caloric needs, similar to a Fitbit. The collars include a GPS unit, accelerometers, and a magnetometer to provide detailed data on where an animal is and what it is doing. 

After callibrating the collars with captive pumas, the team were able to were able to continuously monitor the movements of mountain lions in the wild and determine how much energy the big cats use to stalk, pounce, and overpower their prey. These findings help explain why most cats use a 'stalk and pounce' hunting strategy. 

The researchers were able to quantify, for example, the high energetic costs of traveling over rugged terrain compared to the low cost of "cryptic" hunting behaviors such as sit-and-wait or stalk-and-ambush movements. During the actual pounce and kill, the cats invest a lot of energy in a short time to overpower their prey. Data from the collars showed that mountain lions adjust the amount of energy they put into the initial pounce to account for the size of their prey.

The team now wants to look at mountain lion energetics in a range of different habitat types. In particular, they are interested in how human land use and habitat fragmentation may be influencing the energetic demands on mountain lions in the wild. They also have projects using the new collar technology to study other large carnivores, including wolves, polar bears, and Weddell seals.

For more information, visit the Santa Cruz Puma Project website. 

Let me know if you're interested in a list of case studies for the environmental conditions you've already identified and I'll share my secret stash :) 

Steph 

Hi Paul, 

I just remembered another one for the list. @BethClark is taking some really cool environmental readings for seabirds - Gannets - basically to build a picture of their lives in 3D. She talks about it on her blog here.

A few excerpts: 

Electronic devices are attached onto the birds to record their behaviour: GPS, altimeters, accelerometers and dive recorders. The key will be to use multiple loggers on the same bird to record their flights in great detail. The GPS tracking project has been going on Grassholm for a few years now and we are building up a good picture of where they tend to forage.

The altimeters show the height above the sea, which gives us 3D tracks of the birds’ movements – very cool! The higher you are, the further you can see, but the more difficult it is to pick up scents from the sea. We will find out if these 3D help us pick out foraging behaviour and see how they actually find fish (and fishing boats) in a huge and seemingly featureless ocean.

Dive recorders show the timing and depth of the famous torpedo plunge dives, which will let us know when the birds have successfully found a fishing ground.

The accelerometers measure acceleration in 3 directions, showing even a single wing flap. This will help us to measure how much effort the bird are putting in when they travel and forage, which is very important for trying to figure out how they decide where to go. We will also be able to identify other behaviours, such as telling apart high-speed plunge diving from a slower dive made from the surface.

I think altimeters and dive recorders might be new ones for your list. Beth's here on WILDLABS.NET (and has promised a nice case study for our Resources area), so I think she'd be delighted to answer any questions you might have. 

Cheers,

Steph