in Ecology Ruedi Nager, Dominic McCafferty, Dorothy McKeegan, - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Applications & Opportunities of Thermal Imaging in Ecology Ruedi Nager, Dominic McCafferty, Dorothy McKeegan, Katherine Herborn , Paul Jerem Thermal Ecology Group, IBAHCM, University of Glasgow

IRT in Animal Research Thermal Ecology Group Surveying Wildlife Energy Expenditure Examine Injuries Assessment of Stress http://www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/bahcm/research/sigs/thermalecologygroup

Surveying Wildlife Counting Animals

Presence of nesting an elusive nocturnal burrow nester, the Manx Shearwater, on Ailsa Craig?

Assessing Physiological State Energy Expenditure Assessment of Stress

What does Thermal Imaging measure? Body Surface temperature Environment (sun, wind) will change local peripheral temperature Physiology increased metabolic rate altered blood flow Temperature at any anatomical region = product of metabolic heat production, blood flow within that region, and heat exchange with environment from physical processes. This is going to vary across the body surface

Handling Stress of Wild Blue Tits

Temperature Response to Handling Jerem et al. 2015 Journal of Visualised Experiments e53184

Proportionality of Response V Cradled Side Does a more intense stressor trigger a different temperature response?

Proportionality of Response Handling of different stressor intensity It is graded response, not just response/no response Herborn et al. 2015 Physiology & Behaviour 152, 225

Baseline Temperature Birds with lower body surface temperature were in poorer body condition  That could be because birds in poorer body condition reduce their energy expenditure and produce less heat  Alternatively birds in poor body condition could be chronicallt stressed which reduces surface temperature as for the birds in the handling stress.  The latter scenario is supported by birds with lower body surface temperature having higher levels of corticosterone circulating in their plasma

Examine Injuries Examine Injuries

Examine Injuries Marking of Marine Mammals Patterson et al 2010 Marine Mammal Science 27, 295-305 78 , 1477

Examine Injuries Some birds had one leg warmer than the other leg  This was not affected in birds that wore the standard metal and small colour rings  But the data suggests legs with heavier rings (that carry PIT tags are more likely warmer than the leg with just a standard small ring

Examine Injuries The herring gull on the right wears a harness, and there are no heat leaks that would indicate that the harness has damaged to plumage.

• Summary IRT Research in Animals  Might allow monitoring animals that are difficult to assess  Changes in surface temperature can pick up intensity of acute stress  Baseline surface temperature may reflect chronic stress  Allows detecting remotely the effects of injuries