Tracking animal movements using biomarkers in tail hairs: a novel approach for animal geolocating from sulfur isoscapes.

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dc.creatorKabalika, Zabibu
dc.creatorMorrison, Thomas
dc.creatorMcGill, Rona A
dc.creatorMunishi, Linus
dc.creatorEkwem, Divine
dc.creatorMahene, Wilson
dc.creatorLobora, Alex
dc.creatorNewton, Jason
dc.creatorMorales, Juan
dc.creatorHaydon, Daniel
dc.creatorHopcraft, Grant
dc.date2020-10-06T11:08:57Z
dc.date2020-10-06T11:08:57Z
dc.date2020-09-18
dc.date.accessioned2022-10-25T09:20:44Z
dc.date.available2022-10-25T09:20:44Z
dc.descriptionThis research article published by Movement Ecology, 2020
dc.descriptionBackground Current animal tracking studies are most often based on the application of external geolocators such as GPS and radio transmitters. While these technologies provide detailed movement data, they are costly to acquire and maintain, which often restricts sample sizes. Furthermore, deploying external geolocators requires physically capturing and recapturing of animals, which poses an additional welfare concern. Natural biomarkers provide an alternative, non-invasive approach for addressing a range of geolocation questions and can, because of relatively low cost, be collected from many individuals thereby broadening the scope for population-wide inference. Methods We developed a low-cost, minimally invasive method for distinguishing between local versus non-local movements of cattle using sulfur isotope ratios (δ34S) in cattle tail hair collected in the Greater Serengeti Ecosystem, Tanzania. Results We used a Generalized Additive Model to generate a predicted δ34S isoscape across the study area. This isoscape was constructed using spatial smoothers and underpinned by the positive relationship between δ34S values and lithology. We then established a strong relationship between δ34S from recent sections of cattle tail hair and the δ34S from grasses sampled in the immediate vicinity of an individual’s location, suggesting δ34S in the hair reflects the δ34S in the environment. By combining uncertainty in estimation of the isoscape, with predictions of tail hair δ34S given an animal’s position in the isoscape we estimated the anisotropic distribution of travel distances across the Serengeti ecosystem sufficient to detect movement using sulfur stable isotopes. Conclusions While the focus of our study was on cattle, this approach can be modified to understand movements in other mobile organisms where the sulfur isoscape is sufficiently heterogeneous relative to the spatial scale of animal movements and where tracking with traditional methods is difficult.
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dc.identifierhttps://dspace.nm-aist.ac.tz/handle/20.500.12479/957
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/123456789/95202
dc.languageen
dc.publisherMovement Ecology
dc.rightsAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
dc.rightshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
dc.subjectResearch Subject Categories::SOCIAL SCIENCES
dc.titleTracking animal movements using biomarkers in tail hairs: a novel approach for animal geolocating from sulfur isoscapes.
dc.typeArticle

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