No detectable effects of lightweight geolocators on a Palaearctic-African long-distance migrant

van Wijk, Rien E.; Souchay, Guillaume; Jenni-Eiermann, Susanne; Bauer, Silke; Schaub, Michael (2016). No detectable effects of lightweight geolocators on a Palaearctic-African long-distance migrant. Journal of ornithology, 157(1), pp. 255-264. Springer 10.1007/s10336-015-1274-6

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Tracking devices are used in a broad range of
species for a broad range of questions, but their potential
effects on study species are debated. Outcomes of earlier
studies on effects are equivocal: some studies find negative
effects on behaviour and life history traits, while others do
not. Contrasting results might be due to low sample sizes,
temporal scale (no repetition of the study over multiple
years) and a limited range of response variables considered.
We investigated effects of geolocators on a range of
response variables: body condition, physiological states,
reproductive performance and, ultimately, annual apparent
survival for a medium-sized Palaearctic-African long-distance
migrant, the Eurasian Hoopoe Upupa epops, for the
combined study period (2009–2014) and for individual
years. We investigated response variables 1 year after
deployment of the geolocator and found no differences in
body condition, physiological states and several
components of reproductive performance between individuals
with and without geolocators when data were
combined. Also, apparent annual survival did not differ
between geolocator and control birds. We did, however,
find effects in some years possibly related to environmental
stochasticity or chance events due to lower sample sizes.
We argue that results of studies on the effects of tracking
devices should be interpreted and generalized with great
caution and suggest that future studies on the effects of
tracking devices are conducted over multiple years. Future
studies should also apply capture–recapture models to
estimate survival, rather than focus solely on return rates.

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