A multi-species evaluation of digital wildlife monitoring using the Sigfox IoT network
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Bio-telemetry from small tags attached to animals is one of the principal methods for studying the ecology and behaviour of wildlife. The field has constantly evolved over the last 80 years as technological improvement enabled a diversity of sensors to be integrated into the tags (e.g., GPS, accelerometers, etc.). However, retrieving data from tags on free-ranging animals remains a challenge since satellite and GSM networks are relatively expensive and or power hungry. Recently a new class of low-power communication networks have been developed and deployed worldwide to connect the internet of things (IoT). Here, we evaluated one of these, the Sigfox IoT network, for the potential as a real-time multi-sensor data retrieval and tag commanding system for studying fauna across a diversity of species and ecosystems. We tracked 312 individuals across 30 species (from 25 g bats to 3 t elephants) with seven different device concepts, resulting in more than 177,742 successful transmissions. We found a maximum line of sight communication distance of 280 km (on a flying cape vulture [Gyps coprotheres]), which sets a new documented record for animal-borne digital data transmission using terrestrial infrastructure. The average transmission success rate amounted to 68.3% (SD 22.1) on flying species and 54.1% (SD 27.4) on terrestrial species. In addition to GPS data, we also collected and transmitted data products from accelerometers, barometers, and thermometers. Further, we assessed the performance of Sigfox Atlas Native, a low-power method for positional estimates based on radio signal strengths and found a median accuracy of 12.89 km (MAD 5.17) on animals. We found that robust real-time communication (median message delay of 1.49 s), the extremely small size of the tags (starting at 1.28 g without GPS), and the low power demands (as low as 5.8 µAh per transmitted byte) unlock new possibilities for ecological data collection and global animal observation.
| Originalsprog | Engelsk |
|---|---|
| Artikelnummer | 13 |
| Tidsskrift | Animal Biotelemetry |
| Vol/bind | 11 |
| Antal sider | 17 |
| ISSN | 2050-3385 |
| DOI | |
| Status | Udgivet - 2023 |
Bibliografisk note
Funding Information:
Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. We acknowledge partial funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany's ExcellenceStrategy—EXC 2117—422037984, as well as the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through Grant GBMF10539 to Ma.W. and 013744-2021-04-15 to R.K., and the Akademie für Zoo- und Wildtierschutz e.V., Munich, Germany. This IoT project was also partially supported by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action on the basis of a decision by the German Bundestag, as well as the Max Planck Society, the Knobloch Family Foundation and the National Geographic Society. The wild boar project was funded by European Project H2020 VACDIVA–A Safe DIVA vaccine for African swine fever control and eradication, Grant agreement number 862874. R.W.H. was supported by research Grant 36069 from Villum Fonden for the development of a kinetically powered wildlife tracking unit. Work on African buffalo (enclosure) was funded by the United States National Institutes of Health (Grant No. NIH 1R01GM131319).
Funding Information:
We thank Uschi Müller for the transnational coordination and organisation of field projects, Jürgen Meyer for the collaboration with the Wildtierzentrum—Pflege und Artenschutz e.V., Saarburg—Wiltingen, Benito and Guiseppe Rosta for their help to collect data from domestic goats on the island of Sicily, Martin Boschert and Matthias Reinschmidt for their help to collect data from lapwings, Stefan Laubender for tagging the black stork, Marius and Franziska Heeb from Fledermausschutz Thurgau, Bischofszell, Switzerland, Kamran and Ylva Safi, Marion Muturi and Lara Keicher for their help to tag common noctule bats, Wilson Giancarlo Inga Díaz, Diego Balbuena and the Los Amigos field station for the tagging work in Peru, Andreas Schmidt for the assistance with blackbird tagging, Morrison Pot for providing photos and collecting data on starlings and Grant Beverly, including the team of Endangered Wildlife Trust, South Africa, for the strong support to collect data from African wild dogs. Further, we thank our African collaboration partners of the Thornybush Game Reserve, Selati Game Reserve, Balule Game Reserve, Mankwe Wildlife Reserve and Elephants Alive.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s).
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