Data from: Overall dynamic body acceleration in straw-colored fruit bats increases in headwinds but not with airspeed
Data from: Overall dynamic body acceleration in straw-colored fruit bats increases in headwinds but not with airspeed
Citation
Scharf AK, Fahr J, Abedi-Lartey M, Safi K, Dechmann DKN, Wikelski M, O'Mara MT. 2019. Data from: Overall dynamic body acceleration in straw-colored fruit bats increases in headwinds but not with airspeed. Movebank Data Repository. https://doi.org/10.5441/001/1.k8n02jn8Abstract
Atmospheric conditions impact how animals use the aerosphere, and birds and bats should modify their flight to minimise energetic expenditure relative to changing wind conditions. To investigate how free-ranging straw-colored fruit bats (Eidolon helvum) fly with changing wind support, we use data collected from bats fit with GPS loggers and an integrated triaxial accelerometer and measure flight speeds, wingbeat frequency, and overall dynamic body acceleration (ODBA) as an estimate for energetic expenditure. We predicted that if ODBA reflects energetic expenditure, then we should find a curvilinear relationship between ODBA and airspeed consistent with aerodynamic theory. We expected that bats would lower their airspeed with tailwind support and that ODBA will decrease with increasing tailwinds and increase with wingbeat frequency. We found that wingbeat frequency has the strongest positive relationship with ODBA. There was a small, but negative, relationship between airspeed and ODBA, and bats decreased ODBA with increasing tailwind. Bats flew at ground speeds of 9.6 ± 2.4 ms-1 (mean ± sd, range: 4.3 to 23.9 ms-1) and airspeeds of 10.2 ± 2.5 ms-1, and did not modify their wingbeat frequency with speed. Free-ranging straw-colored fruit bats therefore exerted more total ODBA in headwinds but not when they changed their airspeed. It is possible that the flexibility in wingbeat kinematics may make flight of free-ranging bats less costly than currently predicted or alternatively that the combination of ODBA and airspeed at our scales of measurement does not reflect this relationship in straw-colored fruit bats. Further work is needed to understand the full potential of free-ranging bat flight and how well bio-logging techniques reflect the costs of bat flight.
Keywords
Eidolon helvum,animal tracking,avian migration,biotelemetry,body acceleration,Burkina Faso,Eidolon helvum,flight behavior,Ghana,GPS logger,straw-colored fruit bat,Zambia
BibTex
@misc{001/1_k8n02jn8,
title = {Data from: Overall dynamic body acceleration in straw-colored fruit bats increases in headwinds but not with airspeed},
author = {Scharf, AK and Fahr, J and Abedi-Lartey, M and Safi, K and Dechmann, DKN and Wikelski, M and O'Mara, MT},
year = {2019},
URL = {http://dx.doi.org/10.5441/001/1.k8n02jn8},
doi = {doi:10.5441/001/1.k8n02jn8},
publisher = {Movebank data repository}
}RIS
TY - DATA ID - doi:10.5441/001/1.k8n02jn8 T1 - Data from: Overall dynamic body acceleration in straw-colored fruit bats increases in headwinds but not with airspeed AU - Scharf, Anne K. AU - Fahr, Jakob AU - Abedi-Lartey, Michael AU - Safi, Kamran AU - Dechmann, Dina K.N. AU - Wikelski, Martin AU - O'Mara, M. Teague Y1 - 2019/05/21 KW - Eidolon helvum KW - animal movement KW - animal tracking KW - avian migration KW - biotelemetry KW - body acceleration KW - Burkina Faso KW - Eidolon helvum KW - flight behavior KW - Ghana KW - GPS logger KW - straw-colored fruit bat KW - Zambia KW - Eidolon helvum PB - Movebank data repository UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.5441/001/1.k8n02jn8 DO - doi:10.5441/001/1.k8n02jn8 ER -