Plunge-diving into dynamic body acceleration and energy expenditure in the Peruvian booby

Abstract

Daily energy expenditure (DEE) is the result of decisions on how to allocate time among activities (resting, commuting and foraging) and the energy costs of those activities. Dynamic body acceleration (DBA), which measures acceleration associated with movement, can be used to estimate DEE. Previous studies of DBA–DEE correlations in birds were carried out on species foraging below their thermoneutral zone, potentially decoupling the DBA–DEE relationship. We used doubly labelled water (DLW) to validate the use of DBA on plunge-diving seabirds, Peruvian boobies (Sula variegata), foraging in waters above their thermoneutral zone (>19°C). Mass-specific DEEDLW in boobies was 1.12 kJ day−1 g−1, and higher in males than in females. DBA alone provided the best fitting model to estimate mass-specific DEEDLW compared with models partitioned per activity and time budget models. Nonetheless, the model parametrizing activity at and away from their onshore breeding colony was the most parsimonious (r=0.6). This r value, although high, is lower than that of all other avian studies, implying that temperature is not the main cause of DBA–DEE decoupling in birds. Time at the colony (∼80% of the day) was the largest contributor to DEE as it was the most time-consuming activity and involved nest defence. However, foraging was the most power-consuming activity (4.6 times higher activity-specific metabolic rate than resting at the colony), and commuting flight was higher than in other gliding seabirds. In short, DBA alone can act as a proxy for DEE, opening avenues to measure the conservation energetics of this seabird in the rapidly changing Peruvian Humboldt Current system.