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opencc-zeroNov 2023View details →

Evaluating the efficacy of drone-based thermal images for measuring wildlife abundance and physiology

Monitoring the population dynamics and behaviors of wildlife is crucial for effective conservation. Although drones can provide a promising alternative to traditional monitoring methods, validation studies must be done to quantify the accuracy of drone-based abundance and distribution estimates in various biological systems. Here, we investigate the use of drones equipped with high-resolution Red-Green-Blue (RGB) and thermal cameras, along with machine learning techniques, for assessments of abundance and physiology in northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris). Aerial images of N=3,415 northern elephant seals were collected at Año Nuevo Reserve during N=24 drone flights, along with ambient air temperatures, wind speed, and time-of-day data. The two-dimensional footprints and surface temperatures of seals were measured from the images. Machine learning algorithms were applied to detect seals in the imagery, and model performance was evaluated. Our findings indicate that seal detection was more accurate using RGB images compared to Thermal images, but that Thermal images could be used to determine that time of day and ambient temperature (but not wind speed or body size) strongly influenced seal external skin temperature. In other words, RGB and Thermal cameras have different strengths and weaknesses that should be carefully considered when designing research studies. Our study highlights the promising integration of drones, thermal imaging, and machine learning for wildlife research, contributing to faster, safer, cheaper, less disruptive, and more accurate wildlife monitoring and conservation efforts.

opencc-zeroOct 2021View details →

Supplementary datasets, data analysis code, and R tutorials for: Phylogenetic analysis of adaptation in comparative physiology and biomechanics: overview and a case study of thermal physiology in treefrogs

Comparative phylogenetic studies of adaptation are uncommon in biomechanics and physiology. Such studies require collecting data from many species, a challenge when data collection is experimentally intensive. Moreover, researchers struggle to employ the most biologically appropriate phylogenetic tools for identifying adaptive evolution. Here, we detail an established but greatly underutilized phylogenetic comparative framework—the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process—that explicitly models long-term adaptation. We discuss challenges in implementing and interpreting the model, and we outline potential solutions. We demonstrate use of the model through studying the evolution of thermal physiology in treefrogs. Frogs of the family Hylidae have twice colonized the temperate zone from the tropics, and such colonization likely involved a fundamental change in physiology due to colder and more seasonal temperatures. However, which traits changed to allow colonization is unclear. We measured cold-temperature tolerance and characterized thermal performance curves in jumping for twelve species of treefrogs distributed from the Neotropics to temperate North America. We then conducted phylogenetic comparative analyses to examine how tolerances and performance curves evolved and to test whether that evolution was adaptive. We found that tolerance to low temperatures increased with the transition to the temperate zone. In contrast, jumping well at colder temperatures was unrelated to biogeography and thus did not adapt during dispersal. Overall, our paper shows how comparative phylogenetic methods can be leveraged in biomechanics and physiology to test the evolutionary drivers of variation among species.

opencc-by-4.0Feb 2018View details →

The effects of environmental history and thermal stress on coral physiology and immunity

This dataset has all data for the manuscript (Wall CB,  CA Ricci, GE Foulds, LD Mydlarz, RD Gates, HM Putnam (2018) The effects of environmental history and thermal stress on coral physiology and immunity. Marine Biology). Data included a zipped archive shape file for creating Kāne'ohe Bay map, physical data (light and temperature) from Kāne'ohe Bay and laboratory experiments, pCO2 data for Kāne'ohe Bay reef sites dowloaded from NOAA PMEL, and biological responses (PAM fluorometry, physiology, immune activity and oxidative profile).

Figure 11 in Thermal physiology and the origin of terrestriality in vertebrates

Figure 11. Rate and amount of heat gain and loss in animals the size of adults of Eusthenopteron, Panderichthys, Acanthostega and Ichthyostega (~1 m), and smaller tetrapods. Ambient water temperature is 20 ∞C, and ambient air temperature is 30 ∞C. On the left, time of emergence from the water, on the right, return to the water.

Figure 5 in Thermal physiology and the origin of terrestriality in vertebrates

Figure 5. On the left, amphibian trackway from the Lower Carboniferous (Tournaisian) of the Horton Bluff Formation, Hantsport, Nova Scotia, Redpath Museum, McGill University RM 20.6777. Tail drag indicates that the trackway was made on land. Note similarity with diagram of a trackway from the Upper Carboniferous on the right (from Baird, 1952).

Figure 1. Structural changes between fish and tetrapods. A in Thermal physiology and the origin of terrestriality in vertebrates

Figure 1. Structural changes between fish and tetrapods. A, Eusthenopteron, the most thoroughly known Upper Devonian choanate sarcopterygian (from Andrews & Westoll, 1970). B, Panderichthys, an Upper Devonian fish intermediate between Eusthenopteron and the Upper Devonian amphibians (from Vorobyeva & Schultze, 1991). C, the Upper Devonian amphibian Acanthostega (Coates & Clack, 1995). D, the Upper Devonian amphibian Ichthyostega (from Coates & Clack, 1995). More details of the forelimb have since been discovered (Clack, Blom & Ahlberg, 2003). Animals are reproduced at approximately equal head/trunk lengths.

Figure 4 in Thermal physiology and the origin of terrestriality in vertebrates

Figure 4. Diagram from Clack (2002a) showing how an Acanthostega-like tetrapod might produce tracks like those known from the Upper Devonian Genoa Locality in Australia.

Figure 9. A in Thermal physiology and the origin of terrestriality in vertebrates

Figure 9. A, posterior trunk through anterior caudal ribs of A, the Permian seymouriamorph Kotlassia, and B, the Upper Devonian Acanthostega, showing the clear distinction of the sacral ribs for attachment with the dorsal process of the ilium (from Coates, 1996).

Figure 3 in Thermal physiology and the origin of terrestriality in vertebrates

Figure 3. Fore and hind limbs of Upper Devonian and Lower Carboniferous tetrapods. A, B, Acanthostega, from the Famennian (Uppermost Devonian). C, Ichthyostega, from the Famennian. D, E, Tulerpeton, Famennian. F, G, the temnospondyl Balenerpeton, Lower Carboniferous (Viséan). H, the stem amniote Westlothiana, Viséan. I, the colosteid Greererpeton, Lower Carboniferous (Namurian A). A, B, from Coates (1996); C–E, from Coates et al. (2002); F, G, from Milner & Sequeira (1994); H, from Smithson et al. (1994); I, from Godfrey (1989). Anatomical abbreviations are given in Appendix 1.

Figure 2. A in Thermal physiology and the origin of terrestriality in vertebrates

Figure 2. A simplified phylogeny of sarcopterygians including stem tetrapods and the base of the tetrapod crown group (from Coates et al., 2002).

Figure 6 in Thermal physiology and the origin of terrestriality in vertebrates

Figure 6. Pelvic girdles of Eusthenopteron and Upper Devonian and Permo-Carboniferous tetrapods. A, B, lateral and dorsal views of the pelvic girdle of Eusthenopteron (from Andrews & Westoll, 1970). C–E, lateral, ventral and anterior views of the pelvic girdle of Acanthostega (from Coates, 1996). E is a composite of his figures 9c and 20a, with rib proportions from figure 11. F, lateral view of the pelvis of Ichthyostega from Jarvik (1980). G, lateral view of the pelvis of the Lower Carboniferous whatcheerid Whatcheeria (after Lombard & Bolt, 1995). H, lateral view of the pelvis of the Lower Carboniferous anthracosaur Proterogyrinus from Holmes (1984). I, lateral and ventral views of the pelvis of the Upper Carboniferous temnospondyl Dendrerpeton (from Holmes, Carroll & Reisz, 1998). J, lateral and ventral views of the Lower Permian amniote Captorhinus (from Holmes, 2003). Anatomical abbreviations are given in Appendix 1.

Figure 7. Pectoral girdles. A, B in Thermal physiology and the origin of terrestriality in vertebrates

Figure 7. Pectoral girdles. A, B, lateral and ventral views of the pectoral girdle of Eusthenopteron (from Jarvik, 1980). C, D, lateral and composite dorsal and ventral views of Acanthostega (from Coates, 1996).

opencc-zeroOct 2023View details →

Assessing hybrid vigor using the thermal sensitivity of physiological trade-offs in tiger salamanders

<ol> <li>Hybridization between species affects biodiversity and population sustainability in numerous ways, many of which depend on the fitness of the hybrid relative to the parental species. Hybrids can exhibit fitter phenotypes compared to the parental lineages, and this 'hybrid vigor' can then lead to the extinction of one or both parental lines.</li> <li>In this study, we analyzed the relationship between water loss and gas exchange to compare physiological performance among three tiger salamander genotypes – the native California tiger salamander (CTS), the invasive barred tiger salamanders (BTS), and CTS x BTS hybrids across multiple temperatures (13.5°C, 20.5°C, and 23.5°C). We developed a new index of performance, the water-gas exchange ratio (WGER), which we define as the ratio of gas exchange to evaporative water loss (µL VO2/µL H2O). The ratio describes the ability of an organism to support energetically costly activities with high levels of gas exchange while simultaneously limiting water loss to lower desiccation risk. We used flow-through respirometry to measure the thermal sensitivity of metabolic rate and resistance to water loss of each salamander genotype to compare indices of physiological performance.</li> <li>We found that temperature had a significant effect on metabolic rate and resistance to water loss, with both traits increasing as temperatures warmed. Across genotypes, we found that hybrids have a higher WGER than the native CTS, owing to a higher metabolic rate despite having a lower resistance to water loss.</li> <li>These results provide greater insight into the physiological mechanisms driving hybrid vigor and offer a potential explanation for the rapid spread of salamander hybrids. More broadly, our introduction of the WGER may allow for species- or lineage-wide comparisons of physiological performance across changing environmental conditions, highlighting the insight that can be gleaned from multi-trait analysis of organism performance.</li> </ol>

publicFeb 2023View details →

Data from: Physiological thermal limits predict differential responses of bees to urban heat-island effects

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publicOct 2023View details →

Assessing hybrid vigor using the thermal sensitivity of physiological trade-offs in tiger salamanders

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publicDec 2023View details →

Evaluating the efficacy of drone-based thermal images for measuring wildlife abundance and physiology

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