INIBIOMA   20415
INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES EN BIODIVERSIDAD Y MEDIOAMBIENTE
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
artículos
Título:
An experimental approach to evaluate the potential of drones in terrestrial mammal research: a gregarious ungulate as a study model
Autor/es:
GONZALEZ MUSSO, ROMINA; PANEBIANCO, ANTONELLA; PANEBIANCO, ANTONELLA; SCHROEDER, NATALIA MARIEL; CARMANCHAHI, PABLO; SCHROEDER, NATALIA MARIEL; CARMANCHAHI, PABLO; GONZALEZ MUSSO, ROMINA
Revista:
Royal Society Open Science
Editorial:
The Royal Society
Referencias:
Año: 2020 vol. 7
ISSN:
2054-5703
Resumen:
Research on the use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in wildlife has made remarkable progress recently. Few studies to date have experimentally evaluated the effect of UAS on animals and have usually focused primarily on aquatic fauna. In terrestrial open arid ecosystems, with relatively good visibility to detect animals but little environmental noise, there should be a trade-off between flying the UAS at high height above ground level (AGL) to limit the disturbance of animals and flying low enough to maintain count precision. In addition, body size or social aggregation of species can also affect the ability to detect animals from the air and their response to the UAS approach. To address this gap, we used a gregarious ungulate, the guanaco (Lama guanicoe), as a study model. Based on three types of experimental flights, we demonstrated that (i) the likelihood of miscounting guanacos in images increases with UAS height, but only for offspring and (ii) higher height AGL and lower UAS speed reduce disturbance, except for large groups, which always reacted. Our results call into question mostly indirect and observational previous evidence that terrestrial mammals are more tolerant to UAS than other species and highlight the need for experimental and species-specific studies before using UAS methods.