Nesting attempts and success of Arctic-breeding geese can be derived with high precision from accelerometry and GPS-tracking

Abstract Sensors, such as accelerometers, in tracking devices allow for detailed bio-logging to understand animal behaviour, even in remote places where direct observation is difficult. To study breeding in birds remotely, one needs to understand how to recognise a breeding event from tracking data, and ideally validate this by direct observation. We tagged 49 adult female pink-footed geese (Anser brachyrhynchus) with transmitter neckbands in Finland in spring of 2018 and 2019, and in Svalbard in summer 2018, and validated inferences from tracking by field observations of nesting sites and family status in 2018–2020 (54 spring–summer tracks). We estimated nesting locations by taking the median coordinates of GPS-fixes at which the goose was motionless (overall dynamic body acceleration, ODBA    75% of time within 50 m of the nest, because nest site attendances steeply increased within one day to above this threshold. Nesting duration (number of consecutive days with  >  75% nest site attendance) ranged between 3 and 44 days (n  =  28), but was 30–34 days in confirmed successful nests (n = 9). The prolonged nesting of 39–44 days (n = 3) suggested incubation on unhatchable egg(s). Nest losses before hatching time occurred mostly in day 3–10 and 23–29 of nesting, periods with an increased frequency of nest site recesses. As alternative method, allowing for non-simultaneous GPS and accelerometer data, we show that nesting days were classified with 98.6% success by two general characteristics of breeding: low body motion (daily median ODBA) and low geographic mobility (daily SD of latitude). Median coordinates on nesting days approached real nest sites closely (within 0.8–3.6 m, n  =  6). When considering only geographic mobility (allowing for GPS data only) nesting locations were similarly accurate, but some short nesting attempts were undetected and non-breeding tracks misclassified. We show that nesting attempts, as short as 3 days, and nesting success can be detected remotely with good precision using GPS-tracking and accelerometry. Our method may be generalised to other (precocial) bird species with similar incubation behaviour

The effect of ply thickness on the initiation and growth of delamination in graphite/epoxy laminates with holes under compressive cyclic loading

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1984.Microfiche copy available in Archives and Barker.Includes bibliographical references.by Stephen C. Nolet.M.S

Global S-wave tomography using receiver pairs: An alternative to get rid of earthquake mislocation

International audienceGlobal seismic tomography suffers from uncertainties in earthquake parameters routinely published in seismic catalogues. In particular, errors in earthquake location and origin-time may lead to strong biases in measured body wave delay-times and significantly pollute tomographic models. Common ways of dealing with this issue are to incorporate source parameters as additional unknowns into the linear tomographic equations, or to seek combinations of data to minimize the influence of source mislocations. We propose an alternative, physically-based method to desensitize direct S-wave delay-times to errors in earthquake location and origin-time. Our approach takes advantage of the fact that mislocation delay-time biases depend to first order on the earthquake-receiver azimuth, and to second order on the epicentral distance. Therefore, for every earthquake, we compute S-wave differential delay-times between optimized receiver pairs, such that a large part of their mislocation delay-time biases cancels out (for example origin-time fully subtracts out), while the difference of their sensitivity kernels remains sensitive to the model parameters of interest. Considering realistic, randomly distributed source mislocation vectors, as well as various levels of data noise and different synthetic Earths, we demonstrate that mislocation-related model errors are highly reduced when inverting for such differential delay-times, compared to absolute ones. The reduction is particularly rewarding for imaging the upper-mantle and transition zone. We conclude that using optimized receiver pairs is a suitable, low cost alternative to get rid of errors on earthquake location and origin-time for teleseismic direct S-wave traveltimes. Moreover, it can partly remove unilateral rupture propagation effects in cross-correlation delay-times, since they are similar to mislocation effects

Fermat's principle of least time in the presence of uniformly moving boundaries and media

The refraction of a light ray by a homogeneous, isotropic and non-dispersive transparent material half-space in uniform rectilinear motion is investigated theoretically. The approach is an amalgamation of the original Fermat's principle and the fact that an isotropic optical medium at rest becomes optically anisotropic in a frame where the medium is moving at a constant velocity. Two cases of motion are considered: a) the material half-space is moving parallel to the interface; b) the material half-space is moving perpendicular to the interface. In each case, a detailed analysis of the obtained refraction formula is provided, and in the latter case, an intriguing backward refraction of light is noticed and thoroughly discussed. The results confirm the validity of Fermat's principle when the optical media and the boundaries between them are moving at relativistic speeds.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, RevTeX 4, comments welcome; V2: revised, Fig. 7 added; V3: several typos corrected, accepted for publication in European Journal of Physics (online at: http://stacks.iop.org/EJP/28/933

Nocturnal foraging lifts time-constraints in winter for migratory geese but hardly speeds up fueling

Climate warming advances the optimal timing of breeding for many animals. For migrants to start breeding earlier, a concurrent advancement of migration is required, including premigratory fueling of energy reserves. We investigate whether barnacle geese are time constrained during premigratory fueling and whether there is potential to advance or shorten the fueling period to allow an earlier migratory departure. We equipped barnacle geese with GPS trackers and accelerometers to remotely record birds’ behavior, from which we calculated time budgets. We examined how time spent foraging was affected by the available time (during daylight and moonlit nights) and thermoregulation costs. We used an energetic model to assess onset and rates of fueling and whether geese can further advance fueling by extending foraging time. We show that, during winter, when facing higher thermoregulation costs, geese consistently foraged at night, especially during moonlit nights, in order to balance their energy budgets. In spring, birds made use of the increasing day length and gained body stores by foraging longer during the day, but birds stopped foraging extensively during the night. Our model indicates that, by continuing nighttime foraging throughout spring, geese may have some leeway to advance and increase fueling rate, potentially reaching departure body mass 4 days earlier. In light of rapid climatic changes on the breeding grounds, whether this advancement can be realized and whether it will be sufficient to prevent phenological mismatches remains to be determined

Nonlinear regularization techniques for seismic tomography

The effects of several nonlinear regularization techniques are discussed in the framework of 3D seismic tomography. Traditional, linear, $\ell_2$ penalties are compared to so-called sparsity promoting $\ell_1$ and $\ell_0$ penalties, and a total variation penalty. Which of these algorithms is judged optimal depends on the specific requirements of the scientific experiment. If the correct reproduction of model amplitudes is important, classical damping towards a smooth model using an $\ell_2$ norm works almost as well as minimizing the total variation but is much more efficient. If gradients (edges of anomalies) should be resolved with a minimum of distortion, we prefer $\ell_1$ damping of Daubechies-4 wavelet coefficients. It has the additional advantage of yielding a noiseless reconstruction, contrary to simple $\ell_2$ minimization (`Tikhonov regularization') which should be avoided. In some of our examples, the $\ell_0$ method produced notable artifacts. In addition we show how nonlinear $\ell_1$ methods for finding sparse models can be competitive in speed with the widely used $\ell_2$ methods, certainly under noisy conditions, so that there is no need to shun $\ell_1$ penalizations.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures. Typographical error corrected in accelerated algorithms (14) and (20

Hierarchical model for the scale-dependent velocity of seismic waves

Elastic waves of short wavelength propagating through the upper layer of the Earth appear to move faster at large separations of source and receiver than at short separations. This scale dependent velocity is a manifestation of Fermat's principle of least time in a medium with random velocity fluctuations. Existing perturbation theories predict a linear increase of the velocity shift with increasing separation, and cannot describe the saturation of the velocity shift at large separations that is seen in computer simulations. Here we show that this long-standing problem in seismology can be solved using a model developed originally in the context of polymer physics. We find that the saturation velocity scales with the four-third power of the root-mean-square amplitude of the velocity fluctuations, in good agreement with the computer simulations.Comment: 7 pages including 3 figure

Can sacrificial feeding areas protect aquatic plants from herbivore grazing? Using behavioural ecology to inform wildlife management

Effective wildlife management is needed for conservation, economic and human well-being objectives. However, traditional population control methods are frequently ineffective, unpopular with stakeholders, may affect non-target species, and can be both expensive and impractical to implement. New methods which address these issues and offer effective wildlife management are required. We used an individual-based model to predict the efficacy of a sacrificial feeding area in preventing grazing damage by mute swans (Cygnus olor) to adjacent river vegetation of high conservation and economic value. The accuracy of model predictions was assessed by a comparison with observed field data, whilst prediction robustness was evaluated using a sensitivity analysis. We used repeated simulations to evaluate how the efficacy of the sacrificial feeding area was regulated by (i) food quantity, (ii) food quality, and (iii) the functional response of the forager. Our model gave accurate predictions of aquatic plant biomass, carrying capacity, swan mortality, swan foraging effort, and river use. Our model predicted that increased sacrificial feeding area food quantity and quality would prevent the depletion of aquatic plant biomass by swans. When the functional response for vegetation in the sacrificial feeding area was increased, the food quantity and quality in the sacrificial feeding area required to protect adjacent aquatic plants were reduced. Our study demonstrates how the insights of behavioural ecology can be used to inform wildlife management. The principles that underpin our model predictions are likely to be valid across a range of different resource-consumer interactions, emphasising the generality of our approach to the evaluation of strategies for resolving wildlife management problems