Time–energy budgets outperform dynamic body acceleration in predicting daily energy expenditure in kittiwakes, and estimate a very low cost of gliding flight relative to flapping flight

Energy is a common currency for any living organism, yet estimating energy expenditure in wild animals is challenging. Accelerometers are commonly used to estimate energy expenditure, via a dynamic body acceleration (DBA) or time-energy budget approach. The DBA approach estimates energy expenditure directly from acceleration but may lead to erroneous estimates during inactivity when acceleration is zero but energy expenditure is not. The time-energy budget approach uses accelerometers and other data streams to assign a behaviour to each time step, and then calculates energy expenditure based on activity-specific metabolic rates assigned to each behaviour. Here, we used GPS-accelerometry in breeding black-legged kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla, n=80) to calculate DBA and time-energy budgets derived from simple biologging metrics (speed, wingbeat frequency, GPS position). We then compared these two approaches with estimates of energy expenditure from doubly labelled water (DLW). Energy expenditure estimated from DLW correlated with DBA, but the best model to estimate energy expenditure was based on time-energy budgets. Energetic costs of flapping flight were higher than all other kittiwake behaviours (5.54×basal metabolic rate, BMR). Energetic costs of gliding flight (0.80×BMR) were the lowest of all behaviours, and equivalent to the cost of resting at the colony. DEE for our birds estimated from our calibration coefficients was similar to DEE for our birds estimated with the model coefficient published using different methods. We conclude that once calibrated with DLW, GPS-accelerometry provides a simple method for measuring energy expenditure in wild kittiwakes based on time-energy budgets.