Skip to content
DraconiticResearch
Search Sources API
203,203 studies31 sourcesUpdated 45 min ago
Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Royal Society Open Science

Practical implications of temporal body mass variation for biologging and comparative studies

  • Yitzchak Ben Mocha1
  • Oded Keynan2
  • Andrew N. Radford3
  • Josh J. Arbon3,4
4 affiliations
  1. 1Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz 1 , Universitätsstrasse 10, 78457 Konstanz, Germany
  2. 2Dead Sea and Arava Science Center 2 , Neve Zohar, Israel
  3. 3School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol 3 , 24 Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1TQ, UK
  4. 4Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge 4 , Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK
Open at sourcePDFDOICite

Abstract

Body mass is an important factor in studying animal behaviour and helps determine the permissible mass of animal-borne devices. However, body mass varies over time, and ignoring temporal variation may risk (i) overestimating the permissible mass to be deployed on animals and (ii) biasing comparative research. Here, we quantify how daily and annual variation in body mass may result in these biases using data from wild populations of birds (Arabian babbler (Argya squamiceps), n = 2281 body-mass measurements, 145 individuals) and mammals (dwarf mongoose (Helogale parvula), n = 10602 body-mass measurements, 170 individuals). First, for both species, we demonstrate that when a 5% body mass threshold is calculated when the animals are usually heavier (e.g. evening), the deployed device may be equivalent to 5.4%−6% of body mass when the animals are lighter (e.g. on the following morning). Second, we simulate our data to quantify the relationship between imbalanced weighing times and type-I and type-II error rates. For example, a true sex difference may be missed, if Arabian babbler females tend to be weighed in the evenings but males in the mornings. We conclude with practical recommendations for how to avoid these issues, thereby improving both data reliability and animal welfare.

Related

  1. VesperFlow: An automated pipeline for decoding multisensor data from biologging tags
    D. A. Silva, M. Eqbal, L. Broos +1
    bioRxivPreprintAll rights reservedFull textBioinformatics & computational biologybioRxiv
  2. Temporal, spatial, and parasitic drivers of microbial variation in European honey bees
    Victor Rossier, Thibault Leroy, Philipp Engel +3
    HALPreprintCC BY 4.0Full textProteomics & metabolomicsMicrobiologyHAL
  3. Analyzing globin gene variation in gnomAD: implications for variant interpretation in hemoglobinopathies
    M. Kontopoulou, M. Xenophontos, C. W. Lederer +2
    bioRxivPreprintCC BY-NC-NDFull textGenetics & genomicsbioRxiv
  4. Low-cost rhizotron imaging and zero-shot deep-learning resolve temporal, spatial, and genetic variation in grapevine rootstock root systems
    L. Diaz-Garcia, J. R. Munoz, E. Torres-Lomas +3
    bioRxivPreprintCC BY-NC-NDFull textPlant biologybioRxiv
  5. Inter- and Intraspecific Variation in Dorsal Pigmentation Patterns of Skates (Rajidae) from the Cantabrian Sea: Evidence of High Variability in Raja clavata and Implications for Species Identification.
    Clara Piedrafita-Zubillaga, Daniel A Gómez-Lobo, Isabel Gómez-Álvarez +6
    BiologyPeer-reviewedCC BYFull textEcologyEurope PMC

Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{mocha2026practical,
  title = {{Practical implications of temporal body mass variation for biologging and comparative studies}},
  author = {Yitzchak Ben Mocha and Oded Keynan and Andrew N. Radford and Josh J. Arbon},
  journal = {Royal Society Open Science},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.1098/rsos.260127},
  url = {https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article/13/9/260127/483413/Practical-implications-of-temporal-body-mass},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Practical implications of temporal body mass variation for biologging and comparative studies
AU  - Yitzchak Ben Mocha
AU  - Oded Keynan
AU  - Andrew N. Radford
AU  - Josh J. Arbon
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/30
JO  - Royal Society Open Science
DO  - 10.1098/rsos.260127
UR  - https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article/13/9/260127/483413/Practical-implications-of-temporal-body-mass
AB  - Body mass is an important factor in studying animal behaviour and helps determine the permissible mass of animal-borne devices. However, body mass varies over time, and ignoring temporal variation may risk (i) overestimating the permissible mass to be deployed on animals and (ii) biasing comparative research. Here, we quantify how daily and annual variation in body mass may result in these biases using data from wild populations of birds (Arabian babbler (Argya squamiceps), n = 2281 body-mass measurements, 145 individuals) and mammals (dwarf mongoose (Helogale parvula), n = 10602 body-mass measurements, 170 individuals). First, for both species, we demonstrate that when a 5% body mass threshold is calculated when the animals are usually heavier (e.g. evening), the deployed device may be equivalent to 5.4%−6% of body mass when the animals are lighter (e.g. on the following morning). Second, we simulate our data to quantify the relationship between imbalanced weighing times and type-I and type-II error rates. For example, a true sex difference may be missed, if Arabian babbler females tend to be weighed in the evenings but males in the mornings. We conclude with practical recommendations for how to avoid these issues, thereby improving both data reliability and animal welfare.
SN  - 2054-5703
ER  -