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Leimgruber P, Songsasen N, Stabach JA, Horning M, Reed D, Buk T, Harwood A, Layman L, Mathews C, Vance M, Marinari P, Helmick KE, Delaski KM, Ware LH, Jones JC, Silva JLP, Laske TG, Moraes RN. Providing baseline data for conservation-Heart rate monitoring in captive scimitar-horned oryx. Front Physiol 2023; 14:1079008. [PMID: 36909234 PMCID: PMC9998487 DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2023.1079008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/24/2022] [Accepted: 01/13/2023] [Indexed: 03/14/2023] Open
Abstract
Heart rate biologging has been successfully used to study wildlife responses to natural and human-caused stressors (e.g., hunting, landscape of fear). Although rarely deployed to inform conservation, heart rate biologging may be particularly valuable for assessing success in wildlife reintroductions. We conducted a case study for testing and validating the use of subcutaneous heart rate monitors in eight captive scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammah), a once-extinct species that is currently being restored to the wild. We evaluated biologger safety and accuracy while collecting long-term baseline data and assessing factors explaining variation in heart rate. None of the biologgers were rejected after implantation, with successful data capture for 16-21 months. Heart rate detection accuracy was high (83%-99%) for six of the individuals with left lateral placement of the biologgers. We excluded data from two individuals with a right lateral placement because accuracies were below 60%. Average heart rate for the six scimitar-horned oryx was 60.3 ± 12.7 bpm, and varied by about 12 bpm between individuals, with a minimum of 31 bpm and a maximum of 188 bpm across individuals. Scimitar-horned oryx displayed distinct circadian rhythms in heart rate and activity. Heart rate and activity were low early in the morning and peaked near dusk. Circadian rhythm in heart rate and activity were relatively unchanged across season, but hourly averages for heart rate and activity were higher in spring and summer, respectively. Variation in hourly heart rate averages was best explained by a combination of activity, hour, astronomical season, ambient temperature, and an interaction term for hour and season. Increases in activity appeared to result in the largest changes in heart rate. We concluded that biologgers are safe and accurate and can be deployed in free-ranging and reintroduced scimitar-horned oryx. In addition to current monitoring practices of reintroduced scimitar-horned oryx, the resulting biologging data could significantly aid in 1) evaluating care and management action prior to release, 2) characterizing different animal personalities and how these might affect reintroduction outcomes for individual animals, and 3) identifying stressors after release to determine their timing, duration, and impact on released animals. Heart rate monitoring in released scimitar-horned oryx may also aid in advancing our knowledge about how desert ungulates adapt to extreme environmental variation in their habitats (e.g., heat, drought).
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Affiliation(s)
- Peter Leimgruber
- Conservation Ecology Center, Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, United States
| | - Nucharin Songsasen
- Center for Species Survival, Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, United States
| | - Jared A Stabach
- Conservation Ecology Center, Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, United States
| | - Megan Horning
- Conservation Ecology Center, Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, United States.,Center for Species Survival, Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, United States
| | - Dolores Reed
- Center for Species Survival, Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, United States
| | - Tara Buk
- Center for Species Survival, Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, United States
| | - Arielle Harwood
- Center for Species Survival, Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, United States
| | - Lawrence Layman
- Center for Species Survival, Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, United States
| | - Christopher Mathews
- Center for Species Survival, Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, United States
| | - Morgan Vance
- Center for Species Survival, Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, United States
| | - Paul Marinari
- Center for Species Survival, Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, United States
| | - Kelly E Helmick
- Department of Conservation Medicine, Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, United States
| | - Kristina M Delaski
- Department of Conservation Medicine, Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, United States
| | - Lisa H Ware
- Department of Conservation Medicine, Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, United States
| | - Julia C Jones
- Department of Conservation Medicine, Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, United States
| | - Jose L P Silva
- Department of Statistics, Federal University of Parana, Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil
| | - Timothy G Laske
- Department of Surgery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States.,Cardiac Ablation Solutions, Medtronic Inc., Mounds View, MN, United States
| | - Rosana Nogueira Moraes
- Center for Species Survival, Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, United States.,Department of Physiology, Federal University of Parana, Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil
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Gaidica M, Dantzer B. An implantable neurophysiology platform: Broadening research capabilities in free-living and non-traditional animals. Front Neural Circuits 2022; 16:940989. [PMID: 36213207 PMCID: PMC9537467 DOI: 10.3389/fncir.2022.940989] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/10/2022] [Accepted: 09/05/2022] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
Animal-borne sensors that can record and transmit data (“biologgers”) are becoming smaller and more capable at a rapid pace. Biologgers have provided enormous insight into the covert lives of many free-ranging animals by characterizing behavioral motifs, estimating energy expenditure, and tracking movement over vast distances, thereby serving both scientific and conservational endpoints. However, given that biologgers are usually attached externally, access to the brain and neurophysiological data has been largely unexplored outside of the laboratory, limiting our understanding of how the brain adapts to, interacts with, or addresses challenges of the natural world. For example, there are only a handful of studies in free-living animals examining the role of sleep, resulting in a wake-centric view of behavior despite the fact that sleep often encompasses a large portion of an animal’s day and plays a vital role in maintaining homeostasis. The growing need to understand sleep from a mechanistic viewpoint and probe its function led us to design an implantable neurophysiology platform that can record brain activity and inertial data, while utilizing a wireless link to enable a suite of forward-looking capabilities. Here, we describe our design approach and demonstrate our device’s capability in a standard laboratory rat as well as a captive fox squirrel. We also discuss the methodological and ethical implications of deploying this new class of device “into the wild” to fill outstanding knowledge gaps.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matt Gaidica
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
- *Correspondence: Matt Gaidica,
| | - Ben Dantzer
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
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Wascher CAF. Heart rate as a measure of emotional arousal in evolutionary biology. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2021; 376:20200479. [PMID: 34176323 PMCID: PMC8237168 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0479] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 03/31/2021] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
How individuals interact with their environment and respond to changes is a key area of research in evolutionary biology. A physiological parameter that provides an instant proxy for the activation of the automatic nervous system, and can be measured relatively easily, is modulation of heart rate. Over the past four decades, heart rate has been used to assess emotional arousal in non-human animals in a variety of contexts, including social behaviour, animal cognition, animal welfare and animal personality. In this review, I summarize how measuring heart rate has provided new insights into how social animals cope with challenges in their environment. I assess the advantages and limitations of different technologies used to measure heart rate in this context, including wearable heart rate belts and implantable transmitters, and provide an overview of prospective research avenues using established and new technologies, with a special focus on implications for applied research on animal welfare. This article is part of the theme issue 'Measuring physiology in free-living animals (Part II)'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Claudia A. F. Wascher
- Behavioural Ecology Research Group, School of Life Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge CB1 1PT, United Kingdom
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Hawkes LA, Fahlman A, Sato K. Introduction to the theme issue: Measuring physiology in free-living animals. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2021; 376:20200210. [PMID: 34121463 PMCID: PMC8200652 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0210] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 04/19/2021] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
By describing where animals go, biologging technologies (i.e. animal attached logging of biological variables with small electronic devices) have been used to document the remarkable athletic feats of wild animals since the 1940s. The rapid development and miniaturization of physiologging (i.e. logging of physiological variables such as heart rate, blood oxygen content, lactate, breathing frequency and tidal volume on devices attached to animals) technologies in recent times (e.g. devices that weigh less than 2 g mass that can measure electrical biopotentials for days to weeks) has provided astonishing insights into the physiology of free-living animals to document how and why wild animals undertake these extreme feats. Now, physiologging, which was traditionally hindered by technological limitations, device size, ethics and logistics, is poised to benefit enormously from the on-going developments in biomedical and sports wearables technologies. Such technologies are already improving animal welfare and yield in agriculture and aquaculture, but may also reveal future pathways for therapeutic interventions in human health by shedding light on the physiological mechanisms with which free-living animals undertake some of the most extreme and impressive performances on earth. This article is part of the theme issue 'Measuring physiology in free-living animals (Part I)'.
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Affiliation(s)
- L. A. Hawkes
- Hatherly Laboratories, University of Exeter, Prince of Wales Road Exeter EX4 4PS, UK
| | - A. Fahlman
- Global Diving Research Inc, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
- Fundación Oceanogràfic de la Comunitat Valencia, Valencia, 46005 Spain
| | - K. Sato
- Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture 277-8564, Japan
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