Use of videos to measure dynamic body acceleration as a proxy for metabolic costs in coral reef damselfish (Chromis viridis)

TL;DR

Researchers used videos to track fish movements and found that body acceleration can estimate energy use in damselfish.

Contribution

A new video-based method for measuring metabolic costs in small, mobile animals using dynamic body acceleration.

Findings

Video-based dynamic body acceleration correlates with oxygen consumption rate in damselfish.

The method can estimate metabolic costs of activities like locomotion and feeding.

This approach avoids limitations of traditional methods like loggers or restricted movement.

Abstract

Quantifying the energy costs of various activities is critical to understand key aspects of animal behavior and ecology. Currently, calorimetry is the most widely used method to measure those costs in laboratory studies, whereas field studies use the doubly labeled water method, heart rate and dynamic body acceleration (DBA). However, these methods are limited or even biased because of restricted space for movement, low temporal resolution and/or the need for logger attachment or implantation. Measuring energy costs of behaviors is difficult, especially in small, highly mobile animals. Here, using a damselfish, Chromis viridis, we demonstrate that DBA, obtained from marker-less, automatic video tracking and 3D reconstruction, can effectively estimate oxygen consumption rate. We show that our video-based DBA method can be used to estimate metabolic costs of various activities, such as locomotion and feeding, on an individual basis.

Summary: Dynamic body acceleration measured via image processing is significantly related to the oxygen consumption rate of damselfish.

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