Use of Acceleration and Acoustics to Classify Behavior, Generate Time Budgets, and Evaluate Responses to Moonlight in Free-Ranging Snowshoe Hares

Technological miniaturization is driving a biologging revolution that is producing detailed and sophisticated techniques of assessing individual behavioral responses to environmental conditions. Among the many advancements this revolution has brought is an ability to record behavioral responses of nocturnal, free-ranging species. Here, we combine captive validations of acceleration signatures with acoustic recordings from free-ranging individuals to classify behavior at two resolutions. Combining these classifications with ~2 month-long recordings, we describe winter time budgets, and responses of free-ranging snowshoe hares to changing moonlight. We successfully classified snowshoe hare behavior into four categories (not moving, foraging, hopping, and sprinting) using low frequency accelerometry, with an overall model accuracy of 88%, and acoustic recordings to three categories (silence, hopping, and chewing) with an accuracy of 94%. Broad-scale accelerometer-classified categories were composed of multiple fine-scale behavioral states with the composition varying between individuals and across the day. Time budgets revealed that hares spent ~50% of their time foraging and ~50% not moving, with most foraging and feeding occurring at night. We found that hares adjusted timing of activity in response to moon phase, with a 6% reduction in foraging and 30% reduction in traveling during the night when the moon was full. Hares compensated for this lost foraging time by extending foraging into the morning hours of the following day. Using two biologging technologies to identify behavior, we demonstrate the possibility of combining multiple devices when documenting behavior of cryptic species

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

Fine-mapping analysis including over 254,000 East Asian and European descendants identifies 136 putative colorectal cancer susceptibility genes

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified more than 200 common genetic variants independently associated with colorectal cancer (CRC) risk, but the causal variants and target genes are mostly unknown. We sought to fine-map all known CRC risk loci using GWAS data from 100,204 cases and 154,587 controls of East Asian and European ancestry. Our stepwise conditional analyses revealed 238 independent association signals of CRC risk, each with a set of credible causal variants (CCVs), of which 28 signals had a single CCV. Our cis-eQTL/mQTL and colocalization analyses using colorectal tissue-specific transcriptome and methylome data separately from 1299 and 321 individuals, along with functional genomic investigation, uncovered 136 putative CRC susceptibility genes, including 56 genes not previously reported. Analyses of single-cell RNA-seq data from colorectal tissues revealed 17 putative CRC susceptibility genes with distinct expression patterns in specific cell types. Analyses of whole exome sequencing data provided additional support for several target genes identified in this study as CRC susceptibility genes. Enrichment analyses of the 136 genes uncover pathways not previously linked to CRC risk. Our study substantially expanded association signals for CRC and provided additional insight into the biological mechanisms underlying CRC development

Data from: Predators, energetics and fitness drive neonatal reproductive failure in red squirrels

Neonatal reproductive failure should occur when energetic costs of parental investment outweigh fitness benefits. However, little is known about the drivers of neonatal reproductive failure in free ranging species experiencing continuous natural variation in predator abundance and in the energetic and fitness costs and benefits associated with parental investment. Long-term comprehensive studies are required to better understand how biotic, abiotic, and life history conditions interact to drive occurrences of reproductive failure in the wild. Using 24 years (1987-2011) of reproductive data from a northern boreal population of North American red squirrels in southwestern Yukon, we examined the effects of predator abundance, energetics (resource availability, ambient temperature and litter size), and fitness benefits (probability of overwinter juvenile survival and maternal age) on occurrences of neonatal reproductive failure (494/2670 reproductive attempts; 18.5%). Neonatal reproductive failure was driven by a combination of predator abundance, and the energetic and fitness costs and benefits of parental investment. The abundance of mustelids and maternal age were positively related to the occurrence of neonatal reproductive failure. High energy costs associated with a combination of low resource availability and cold ambient temperatures or large litters, corresponded to increased occurrences of neonatal reproductive failure. However, the strength of these relationships was influenced by variation in juvenile overwinter survival (i.e. fitness benefits). We provide evidence that predation pressure is an important driver of neonatal reproductive failure. In addition, we found a trade-off occurs between resource-dependent energetic and fitness costs and benefits of raising the current litter to independenc

Data from: Behavioral classification of low frequency acceleration and temperature data from a free ranging small mammal

1. The miniaturization and affordability of new technology is driving a biologging revolution in wildlife ecology with use of animal-borne data logging devices. Among many new biologging technologies, accelerometers are emerging as key tools for continuously recording animal behavior. Yet a critical, but under-acknowledged consideration in biologging is the trade-off between sampling rate and sampling duration, created by battery- (or memory-) related sampling constraints. This is especially acute among small animals, causing most researchers to sample at high rates for very limited durations.Here, we show that high accuracy in behavioral classification is achievable when pairing low frequency acceleration recordings with temperature. 2. We conducted 84 hours of direct behavioral observations on 67 free-ranging red squirrels (200-300 g) that were fitted with accelerometers (2 g) recording tri-axial acceleration and temperature at 1 Hz. We then used a random forest algorithm and a manually-created decision tree, with variable sampling window lengths, to associate observed behavior with logger recorded acceleration and temperature. Finally, we assessed the accuracy of these different classifications using an additional 60 hours of behavioral observations, not used in the initial classification. 3. The accuracy of the manually-created decision tree classification using observational data varied from 70.6% to 91.6% depending on the complexity of the tree, with increasing accuracy as complexity decreased. Short duration behavior like running had lower accuracy than long duration behavior like feeding. The random forest algorithm offered similarly high overall accuracy, but the manual decision tree afforded the flexibility to create a hierarchical tree, and to adjust sampling window length for behavioral states with varying durations. 4. Low frequency biologging of acceleration and temperature allows accurate behavioral classification of small animals over multi-month sampling durations. Nevertheless, low sampling rates impose several important limitations, especially related to assessing the classification accuracy of short duration behavior

Reproductive failure of red squirrels and associated measurements

Data collected in the field from 1989 to 2012 on reproductive failure in red squirrels and associated variables. Columns are: LitID- litter ID # in analysis, Grid - study area in which squirrel was living, YR - Year of reproductive attempt, LN - reproductive attempt number of that year for the female (all are the first litter), BDATE - estimated parturition date of litter (based on live trap monitoring of females), FoodSup - whether squirrels were provided food supplementation (1) or not (0), MOMID - unique ear tag numbers of female squirrels, litsize - number of pups in litter, PCI - previous years spruce cone index (log transformed), weas - annual average number of weasel tracks/100km counted in area, marten - annual average number of marten tracks/100km counted in area, pYRSurv - proportion of that years cohort of juveniles that survived the winter to the following year, cold - coldest 4-day average temperature experienced during the first 14 days of lactation (Environment Canada’s National Climate Data and Information Archive (www.climate.weatheroffice.gc.ca)), mBY - birth year of the female, pred - annual average number of mustelid (marten and weasel) tracks/100km counted in area, MAge - maternal age

North American red squirrels mitigate costs of territory defence through social plasticity

For territorial species, the ability to be behaviourally plastic in response to changes in their social environment may be beneficial by allowing individuals to mitigate conflict with conspecifics and reduce the costs of territoriality. Here we investigated whether North American red squirrels, Tamiasciurus hudsonicus, are able to minimize costs of territory defence by adjusting behaviour in response to the familiarity of neighbouring conspecifics. Since red squirrels living in familiar neighbourhoods face reduced intrusion risk, we predicted that increasing familiarity among territorial neighbours would allow squirrels to spend less time on territorial defence and more time in the nest. Longitudinal behavioural data (1995–2004) collected from the same squirrels across several different social environments indicated that red squirrels reduced rates of territorial vocalizations and increased nest use in response to increasing familiarity with neighbours. In contrast, cross-sectional data (2015–2016), which provided observations from each individual in a single social environment, did not provide evidence of this plasticity. Post hoc analyses revealed that evidence of social plasticity in this system is primarily due to within-individual changes in behaviour, which we were unable to estimate in the cross-sectional data. Our results demonstrate that red squirrels respond to changes in their social environment by adjusting their behaviour in a manner that reduces the costs of territoriality. However, our results also suggest that estimating plasticity by comparing behaviour among individuals (i.e. cross-sectional analyses) may not always be reliable. Our ability to detect these effects may therefore depend on having data with multiple observations from the same individuals across different social environments