Precision stellar radial velocity measurements with FIDEOS at the ESO 1-m telescope of La Silla

We present results from the commissioning and early science programs of FIDEOS, the new high-resolution echelle spectrograph developed at the Centre of Astro Engineering of Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, and recently installed at the ESO 1m telescope of La Silla. The instrument provides spectral resolution R = 43,000 in the visible spectral range 420-800 nm, reaching a limiting magnitude of 11 in V band. Precision in the measurement of radial velocity is guaranteed by light feeding with an octagonal optical fibre, suitable mechanical isolation, thermal stabilisation, and simultaneous wavelength calibration. Currently the instrument reaches radial velocity stability of = 8 m/s over several consecutive nights of observation

Buoyancy under Control: Underwater Locomotor Performance in a Deep Diving Seabird Suggests Respiratory Strategies for Reducing Foraging Effort

BACKGROUND: Because they have air stored in many body compartments, diving seabirds are expected to exhibit efficient behavioural strategies for reducing costs related to buoyancy control. We study the underwater locomotor activity of a deep-diving species from the Cormorant family (Kerguelen shag) and report locomotor adjustments to the change of buoyancy with depth. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Using accelerometers, we show that during both the descent and ascent phases of dives, shags modelled their acceleration and stroking activity on the natural variation of buoyancy with depth. For example, during the descent phase, birds increased swim speed with depth. But in parallel, and with a decay constant similar to the one in the equation explaining the decrease of buoyancy with depth, they decreased foot-stroke frequency exponentially, a behaviour that enables birds to reduce oxygen consumption. During ascent, birds also reduced locomotor cost by ascending passively. We considered the depth at which they started gliding as a proxy to their depth of neutral buoyancy. This depth increased with maximum dive depth. As an explanation for this, we propose that shags adjust their buoyancy to depth by varying the amount of respiratory air they dive with. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Calculations based on known values of stored body oxygen volumes and on deep-diving metabolic rates in avian divers suggest that the variations of volume of respiratory oxygen associated with a respiration mediated buoyancy control only influence aerobic dive duration moderately. Therefore, we propose that an advantage in cormorants--as in other families of diving seabirds--of respiratory air volume adjustment upon diving could be related less to increasing time of submergence, through an increased volume of body oxygen stores, than to reducing the locomotor costs of buoyancy control

ECG Response of Koalas to Tourists Proximity: A Preliminary Study

Koalas operate on a tight energy budget and, thus, may not always display behavioral avoidance reaction when placed in a stressful condition. We investigated the physiological response of captive koalas Phascolarctos cinereus in a conservation centre to the presence of tourists walking through their habitat. We compared, using animal-attached data-recorders, the electrocardiogram activity of female koalas in contact with tourists and in a human-free area. One of the koalas in the tourist zone presented elevated heart rate values and variability throughout the recording period. The remaining female in the exhibit area showed a higher field resting heart rates during the daytime than that in the isolated area. In the evening, heart rate profiles changed drastically and both the koalas in the exhibit and in the tourist-free zones displayed similar field resting heart rates, which were lower than those during the day. In parallel, the autonomic nervous systems of these two individuals evolved from sympathetic-dominant during the day to parasympathetic-dominant in the evening. Our results report ECG of free-living koalas for the first time. Although they are preliminary due to the difficulty of having sufficient samples of animals of the same sex and age, our results stress out the importance of studies investigating the physiological reaction of animals to tourists

Acceleration predicts energy expenditure in a fat, flightless, diving bird

Funding The project was supported logistically by the French Polar Institute and funded by the PEW fellowship to Y.R.-C., the WWF-UK, and the Zone Atelier Antarctique et Terres Australes from the CNRS. D.M.W. received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska‐Curie Individual Fellowship Grant Agreement No. 748026.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Vision and Foraging in Cormorants: More like Herons than Hawks?

Background Great cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo L.) show the highest known foraging yield for a marine predator and they are often perceived to be in conflict with human economic interests. They are generally regarded as visually-guided, pursuit-dive foragers, so it would be expected that cormorants have excellent vision much like aerial predators, such as hawks which detect and pursue prey from a distance. Indeed cormorant eyes appear to show some specific adaptations to the amphibious life style. They are reported to have a highly pliable lens and powerful intraocular muscles which are thought to accommodate for the loss of corneal refractive power that accompanies immersion and ensures a well focussed image on the retina. However, nothing is known of the visual performance of these birds and how this might influence their prey capture technique. Methodology/Principal Findings We measured the aquatic visual acuity of great cormorants under a range of viewing conditions (illuminance, target contrast, viewing distance) and found it to be unexpectedly poor. Cormorant visual acuity under a range of viewing conditions is in fact comparable to unaided humans under water, and very inferior to that of aerial predators. We present a prey detectability model based upon the known acuity of cormorants at different illuminances, target contrasts and viewing distances. This shows that cormorants are able to detect individual prey only at close range (less than 1 m). Conclusions/Significance We conclude that cormorants are not the aquatic equivalent of hawks. Their efficient hunting involves the use of specialised foraging techniques which employ brief short-distance pursuit and/or rapid neck extension to capture prey that is visually detected or flushed only at short range. This technique appears to be driven proximately by the cormorant's limited visual capacities, and is analogous to the foraging techniques employed by herons

The retrospective analysis of Antarctic tracking data project

The Retrospective Analysis of Antarctic Tracking Data (RAATD) is a Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research project led jointly by the Expert Groups on Birds and Marine Mammals and Antarctic Biodiversity Informatics, and endorsed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. RAATD consolidated tracking data for multiple species of Antarctic meso- and top-predators to identify Areas of Ecological Significance. These datasets and accompanying syntheses provide a greater understanding of fundamental ecosystem processes in the Southern Ocean, support modelling of predator distributions under future climate scenarios and create inputs that can be incorporated into decision making processes by management authorities. In this data paper, we present the compiled tracking data from research groups that have worked in the Antarctic since the 1990s. The data are publicly available through biodiversity.aq and the Ocean Biogeographic Information System. The archive includes tracking data from over 70 contributors across 12 national Antarctic programs, and includes data from 17 predator species, 4060 individual animals, and over 2.9 million observed locations

Diving behaviour of albatrosses: implications for foraging ecology and bycatch susceptibility

Funder: Gates Cambridge Trust; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100005370Funder: British Antarctic Survey; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100007849Abstract: Diving is an ecologically important behaviour that provides air-breathing predators with opportunities to capture prey, but that also increases their exposure to incidental mortality (bycatch) in commercial fisheries. In this study, we characterised the diving behaviour of 26 individuals of three species, the black-browed albatross Thalassarche melanophris, grey-headed albatross T. chrysostoma and light-mantled albatross Phoebetria palpebrata, breeding at Bird Island, South Georgia. Individuals were tracked using Global Location Sensor (GLS)-immersion loggers and time-depth recorders (TDRs) and, for two species, Global Positioning System (GPS) loggers. Although the TDRs recorded 589 dives (defined in this paper as submersion > 1 m), average dive depths and durations were just 1.30–1.49 m and 2.5–3.3 s, respectively, for the three species. In addition, many individuals (22% of black-browed, 20% of grey-headed, and 57% of light-mantled albatrosses; total n = 9, 10 and 7 individuals, respectively) did not dive at all. Most dives occurred at the distal end of foraging trips and were rare during the commuting phase. No dives took place in darkness, despite long periods spent on water at night. The limited and shallow dive activity contrasts with impressions from a previous study using capillary-tube depth gauges (which are less accurate than TDRs) and has implications for the susceptibility of albatrosses to bycatch on longlines. This study provides further support for regulations requiring night setting and increased sink rates of baited hooks to help mitigate albatross bycatch

Windscapes shape seabird instantaneous energy costs but adult behavior buffers impact on offspring

Acknowledgements K. Ashbrook, M. Barrueto, K. Elner, A. Hargreaves, S. Jacobs, G. Lancton, M. LeVaillant, E. Grosbellet, A. Moody, A. Ronston, J. Provencher, P. Smith, K. Woo and P. Woodward helped in the field. J. Nakoolak kept us safe from bears. N. Sapir and two anonymous reviewers provided very useful comments on an earlier version of our manuscript. R. Armstrong at the Nunavut Research Institute, M. Mallory at the Canadian Wildlife Service Northern Research Division and C. Eberl at National Wildlife Research Centre in Ottawa provided logistical support. F. Crenner, N. Chatelain and M. Brucker customized the GPS at the IPHC-CNRS. KHE received financial support through a NSERC Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, ACUNS Garfield Weston Northern Studies scholarship and AINA Jennifer Robinson Scholarship and JFH received NSERC Discovery Grant funding. J. Welcker generously loaned some accelerometers. All procedures were approved under the guidelines of the Canadian Council for Animal Care.Peer reviewedPublisher PD