ArticleThe Journal of animal ecology2020
Estimates for energy expenditure in free-living animals using acceleration proxies: A reappraisal.
Article in The Journal of animal ecology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 97 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
97 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 274 citations in OpenAlex.
- Practical guidelines for validation of supervised machine learning models in accelerometer-based animal behaviour classification.The Journal of animal ecology · 2025Pooled it
- To flee or not to flee: anti-predator response of humpback whales on their breeding ground.iScience · 2026Article
- Refining Accelerometer-Based Animal Behaviour Classifications With Sequence-Informed Post-Processing.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Heart rate biologgers reveal individual-specific energy landscapes for mule deer.Movement ecology · 2026Article
- Six decades of animal accelerometry: trends, applications, and future directions.Movement ecology · 2026Review
- Quantifying costs and benefits of alternative overwintering strategies in a southeastern population of timber rattlesnakes (Current zoology · 2026Article
- Multi-Sensor Assessment of Pigeon Flight Behavior: Role of Biomechanical and Landscape Characteristics.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- RAMSMART: a low-invasive system for real-time automated multi-species monitoring of livestock activity in research trials.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2026Article
- Estimating energy expenditure of sperm whales living in social units.Conservation physiology · 2026Article
- Resource use and associated energy expenditure of African crowned eagles (Conservation physiology · 2026Article
- Article
- Burst swimming in sockeye salmon during their 1100 km upstream migration.Conservation physiology · 2026Article
- Sweat the small stuff: A review of the use of accelerometers to estimate energy expenditure in wild animals.The Journal of animal ecology · 2025Review
- Human biomass movement exceeds the biomass movement of all land animals combined.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Capturing vocal communication in a free-living corvid: high-resolution data from low-impact miniaturized tags.Animal cognition · 2025Article
- Real-time context-dependent cooperation in parental provisioning reveals fitness payoffs in barn owls.iScience · 2025Article
- Tracking solutions to a persistent threat: spatial movement patterns reflect lead exposure in critically endangered California condors.Ecotoxicology (London, England) · 2025Article
- A call for using rangeland-based livestock operations as model systems for studying the movement ecology of terrestrial animals.Movement ecology · 2025Article
- Mechanical Running Power and Energy Expenditure in Uphill and Downhill Running.Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Real-Time Behaviour Recognition on Bio-Loggers Enables Autonomous Audio Playback Experiments in Free-Ranging Seabirds.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
37 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
20 authors at 11 institutions in 9 countries.
Funding
Abstract
It is fundamentally important for many animal ecologists to quantify the costs of animal activities, although it is not straightforward to do so. The recording of triaxial acceleration by animal-attached devices has been proposed as a way forward for this, with the specific suggestion that dynamic body acceleration (DBA) be used as a proxy for movement-based power. Dynamic body acceleration has now been validated frequently, both in the laboratory and in the field, although the literature still shows that some aspects of DBA theory and practice are misunderstood. Here, we examine the theory behind DBA and employ modelling approaches to assess factors that affect the link between DBA and energy expenditure, from the deployment of the tag, through to the calibration of DBA with energy use in laboratory and field settings. Using data from a range of species and movement modes, we illustrate that vectorial and additive DBA metrics are proportional to each other. Either can be used as a proxy for energy and summed to estimate total energy expended over a given period, or divided by time to give a proxy for movement-related metabolic power. Nonetheless, we highlight how the ability of DBA to predict metabolic rate declines as the contribution of non-movement-related factors, such as heat production, increases. Overall, DBA seems to be a substantive proxy for movement-based power but consideration of other movement-related metrics, such as the static body acceleration and the rate of change of body pitch and roll, may enable researchers to refine movement-based metabolic costs, particularly in animals where movement is not characterized by marked changes in body acceleration.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.