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Using triaxial accelerometry to detect hunts and kills by African wild dogs

James Redcliffe, Scott Creel, Ben Goodheart, Johnathan Reyes de Merkle, Stephani S. Matsushima, Michelo Mungolo, Ruth Kabwe, Emmanuel Kaseketi, Will Donald, Adrian Kaluka, Clive Chifunte, Matthew S. Becker, Rory Wilson Orcid Logo

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, Volume: 12, Start page: 1465094

Swansea University Authors: James Redcliffe, Rory Wilson Orcid Logo

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    © 2024 Redcliffe, Creel, Goodheart, Reyes de Merkle, Matsushima, Mungolo, Kabwe, Kaseketi, Donald, Kaluka, Chifunte, Becker and Wilson. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).

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DOI (Published version): 10.3389/fevo.2024.1465094

Abstract

Most large carnivores feed on prey infrequently and may expend large amounts of energy to locate, capture and kill their prey. This makes them probabilistically vulnerable to fluctuating rates of energy acquisition over time, especially within the increasingly human-altered landscapes that dominate...

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Published in: Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
ISSN: 2296-701X
Published: Frontiers Media SA 2024
Online Access: Check full text

URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa67606
Abstract: Most large carnivores feed on prey infrequently and may expend large amounts of energy to locate, capture and kill their prey. This makes them probabilistically vulnerable to fluctuating rates of energy acquisition over time, especially within the increasingly human-altered landscapes that dominate their remaining range. Consequently, quantifying their hunting behaviors and success rates is critical, yet direct observation of these events is rarely feasible. We theorized that we could determine prey pursuit and capture in African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) using a mechanistic approach by constructing Boolean algorithms applied to accelerometer data derived from collar-mounted tags. Here, we used this method and then iteratively improved algorithms by testing them on observed hunts and kills of collared packs. Using this approach on 47 days of acceleration from three wild dogs in three packs, we identified 29 hunts with 10 kills, all of which were confirmed by direct observation except for a single kill. Our results demonstrate that hunting effort and success can largely be determined from acceleration data using a mechanistic approach. This is particularly valuable when such behaviors are rarely quantified and offers a template for research on foraging in canid species, while also contributing to the expanding body of literature that employs similar methods to quantify hunting in large carnivores.
Keywords: African wild dogs, accelerometry, hunts, kills, VeDBA, movement, pitch angle
College: Faculty of Science and Engineering
Funders: The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The work was funded by NERC (NE/X015491/1) and by the National Science Foundation (IOS-1145749, DEB-2032131 and DEB-2221826), National Geographic Society Predator Research Grant, Dazzle Africa, World Wildlife Fund-Netherlands & Zambia, Tusk Trust, Painted Dog Conservation Inc., Gemfields Inc., Green Safaris.
Start Page: 1465094

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