Meeting Abstract
Behavioral thermoregulation is crucial for avoiding thermal stress. Hence, understanding when and how animals might utilize microhabitats for thermoregulation may enable a better risk assessment and conservation planning for animals. However, data on animal location are usually analyzed based on topography, land cover, and other biotic factors, while ignoring microclimate conditions, which may have substantial importance for thermoregulation. Here we integrated microclimate modeling and empirical observations to study how the movement patterns of a searching mammal are affected by thermal conditions, using search-trained dogs as our model animal. In particular, we used GPS tracking to measure how microclimate conditions affected the movement of dogs during their training sessions in a natural forest with nearly 50% vegetation cover, and analyzed the dogs’ selection of particular microclimates. To estimate microclimates in the study area, we developed a model that calculates ground temperatures based on meteorological variables obtained from a weather station, the topography and land-cover of the area obtained from a drone. To validate the model, we also used the drone to map the ground temperature under different weather conditions. Interestingly, we found that the dogs’ thermoregulation efforts varied between movement and standing. In particular, dogs did not show a preference for a particular microhabitat during movement, but often chose a cooler microhabitat when standing. Our findings highlight the importance of movement analysis and microclimatic mapping when seeking to understand the thermoregulation behavior of animals.
