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<p>Biologgers are essential tools for studying various aspects of animal behaviour in unobservable environments, such as the deep ocean. Nonetheless, biologgers increase drag and mass (and likely buoyancy) of the animal, altering the very behaviours they were designed to observe. A common guideline is that tag weight should be below 3% of the body mass of a bird to minimize such impacts, yet that threshold has seldom been directly tested. We evaluated the impacts of GPS loggers, weighing less than this threshold, around 1% of body mass, deployed on the back of adult thick-billed murres (<i>Uria lomvia</i>). We deployed tags for three days during chick-rearing in 2024, a period of rapid natural body mass loss. The body mass of murres equipped with GPS decreased twice as much as unequipped birds (38&#xa0;g of mass loss which is about 3.9% of body mass, vs. 15&#xa0;g, 1.6%). Increased mass loss associated with tags representing 1–3% of body mass occurred across two years with historical data (2005 and 2013), implying consistent impacts across environmental conditions. Chick growth rate (body mass change) was lower when the parent carried a GPS compared to when the parent was unhandled, but only when deployed in late-chick-rearing. We conclude that the 3% threshold is inappropriate for murres (and likely other diving seabirds), and that even a short deployment of a 1% body mass tag could still affect the condition of both parents and offsprings.</p>

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Tag weighing 1% body mass causes reduced body mass in an Arctic diving seabird, the thick-billed murre

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年10月31日

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  • Marianne Gousy-Leblanc,
  • Kyle H. Elliott

摘要

Biologgers are essential tools for studying various aspects of animal behaviour in unobservable environments, such as the deep ocean. Nonetheless, biologgers increase drag and mass (and likely buoyancy) of the animal, altering the very behaviours they were designed to observe. A common guideline is that tag weight should be below 3% of the body mass of a bird to minimize such impacts, yet that threshold has seldom been directly tested. We evaluated the impacts of GPS loggers, weighing less than this threshold, around 1% of body mass, deployed on the back of adult thick-billed murres (Uria lomvia). We deployed tags for three days during chick-rearing in 2024, a period of rapid natural body mass loss. The body mass of murres equipped with GPS decreased twice as much as unequipped birds (38 g of mass loss which is about 3.9% of body mass, vs. 15 g, 1.6%). Increased mass loss associated with tags representing 1–3% of body mass occurred across two years with historical data (2005 and 2013), implying consistent impacts across environmental conditions. Chick growth rate (body mass change) was lower when the parent carried a GPS compared to when the parent was unhandled, but only when deployed in late-chick-rearing. We conclude that the 3% threshold is inappropriate for murres (and likely other diving seabirds), and that even a short deployment of a 1% body mass tag could still affect the condition of both parents and offsprings.