Data Paper |
Corresponding author: Tanja Milotic ( tanja.milotic@inbo.be ) Academic editor: Knud Jønsson
© 2020 Tanja Milotic, Peter Desmet, Anny Anselin, Luc De Bruyn, Nico De Regge, Kjell Janssens, Raymond Klaassen, Ben Koks, Tonio Schaub, Almut Schlaich, Geert Spanoghe, Filiep T’jollyn, Joost Vanoverbeke, Willem Bouten.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Milotic T, Desmet P, Anselin A, De Bruyn L, De Regge N, Janssens K, Klaassen R, Koks B, Schaub T, Schlaich A, Spanoghe G, T’jollyn F, Vanoverbeke J, Bouten W (2020) GPS tracking data of Western marsh harriers breeding in Belgium and the Netherlands. ZooKeys 947: 143-155. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.947.52570
|
In this data paper three datasets are described containing GPS tracking and acceleration data of Western marsh harriers (Circus aeruginosus) breeding in Belgium and the Netherlands. The Western marsh harrier is included as a threatened bird species in Annex I of the European Bird Directive due to the steep decline in population densities. In order to collect data of habitat use and migration behaviour, Western marsh harriers were equipped with light-weight solar powered GPS trackers developed by the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) at the University of Amsterdam (University of Amsterdam Bird Tracking System, UvA-BiTS). These trackers automatically collect and store data on the bird’s activity and 3D position in time and transmit these data to ground stations.
The datasets were collected by the Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) and the Dutch Montagu’s Harrier Foundation. Tracked Western marsh harriers were breeding in the northeast of the Dutch province of Groningen and on the opposite side of the river Ems in Germany (H_GRONINGEN), in the region of Waterland-Oudeman near the Belgian-Dutch border (MH_WATERLAND), and at the left bank of the Scheldt estuary, close to the Belgian-Dutch border and north of the city of Antwerp (MH_ANTWERPEN). Most individuals remained within 10 km from their nesting sites during the breeding season and wintered in West Africa. H_GRONINGEN contains 987,493 GPS fixes and 3,853,859 acceleration records of four individuals since 2012. MH_WATERLAND contains 377,910 GPS fixes of seven individuals. Sampling in this region began in 2013. Three more Western marsh harriers were tagged in the Scheldt estuary near Antwerp more recently in 2018 (one individual) and 2019 (two individuals) for the MH_ANTWERPEN study, which contains 47,917 GPS fixes and 227,746 acceleration records.
The three Western marsh harrier datasets were published as separate studies in Movebank (https://www.movebank.org) and archived as data packages in Zenodo (https://www.zenodo.org) to ensure long-term preservation and versioning of the data.
Animal movement, bird tracking, biologging, Circus aeruginosus, GPS tracking, habitat use, LifeWatch, machine observation, migration data, Movebank, UvA-BiTS
Koks B, Schlaich A, Schaub T, Klaassen R, Anselin A, Desmet P, Milotic T, Janssens K, Bouten W (2019) H_GRONINGEN – Western marsh harriers (Circus aeruginosus, Accipitridae) breeding in Groningen (the Netherlands). Dataset. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3552507
Anselin A, Desmet P, Milotic T, Janssens K, T’Jollyn F, De Bruyn L, Bouten W (2019) MH_WATERLAND – Western marsh harriers (Circus aeruginosus, Accipitridae) breeding near the Belgium-Netherlands border. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3532940
Spanoghe G, Desmet P, Milotic T, Janssens K, De Regge N, Vanoverbeke J, Bouten W (2019) MH_ANTWERPEN – Western marsh harriers (Circus aeruginosus, Accipitridae) breeding near Antwerp (Belgium). Dataset. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3550093
The Western marsh harrier (Circus aeruginosus Linnaeus, 1758) is a large harrier species native to temperate and subtropical Eurasia and Africa. Due to the steep population decline observed in Europe since the 1970s, the species has been included as a threatened species in annex I of the European Birds Directive in 1979. In Flanders, the Western marsh harrier appears as an endangered species on the red list of breeding bird species (
In 2012, the Dutch Montagu’s Harrier Foundation (GKA) initiated a GPS tracking study in the northeastern part of the Netherlands (Groningen) using lightweight, solar powered GPS tags. The research objectives for this monitoring study were to determine habitat use of Western marsh harriers in agricultural landscapes, to reveal their migration behaviour, and to study flying behaviour in the vicinity of wind turbines for estimating collision risks.
The Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) started studying the ecology of the Western marsh harrier in Belgium in 2011. One of the aims was to study detailed habitat use and migration patterns. In 2013, the INBO started a GPS sensor network for birds as part of the Belgian contribution to the LifeWatch observatory, using the same technology as GKA. In this network, individuals of a breeding population of Western marsh harriers in the northern part of Flanders (Waterland-Oudeman region) were equipped with GPS trackers in collaboration with GKA. In 2018, a third population was tagged with GPS trackers in the Scheldt estuary north of the city of Antwerp. The research objectives of these projects were to study the trade-off between migratory behaviour, reproductive performance and survival, and to study the home-range area, habitat preference, and foraging behaviour of Western marsh harriers in agricultural areas. To allow greater use of the data beyond our research questions, all data are now published as open data.
The dataset contains data from four individuals breeding in Groningen (The Netherlands) (H_GRONINGEN), seven individuals breeding near the Belgian-Dutch border (MH_WATERLAND), and three individuals breeding near Antwerp (Belgium) (MH_ANTWERPEN) (Figure
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Accipitriformes
Family: Accipitridae
Genus: Circus
Species: Circus aeruginosus (Linnaeus, 1758)
The tracked birds were breeding in the northeast of the Dutch province of Groningen and on the opposite side of the river Ems in Germany (H_GRONINGEN), in the region of Waterland-Oudeman near the Belgian-Dutch border (MH_WATERLAND), and at the left bank of the Scheldt estuary close to the Belgian-Dutch border and north of the city of Antwerp (MH_ANTWERPEN). All individuals from which data from the non-breeding period were available wintered in West Africa (Figure
H_GRONINGEN: 6.65N to 53.40N; 16.92W to 7.32E
MH_WATERLAND: 13.38N to 51.47N; 17.13W to 10.01E
MH_ANTWERPEN: 51.23N to 51.35N; 4.18E to 4.39E
H_GRONINGEN: 2012-05-10 – 2018-07-11
MH_WATERLAND: 2013-05-16 – ongoing
MH_ANTWERPEN: 2018-07-18 – ongoing
The studied Western marsh harrier populations breed in agricultural landscapes in the northeast of the Dutch province of Groningen (H_GRONINGEN; 53.278N, 6.981E), the polder area in the north-western part of Belgium (MH_WATERLAND; 51.276N, 3.595E), and in the polder area at the left bank of the Scheldt estuary in the northern part of Belgium (MH_ANTWERPEN; 51.312N, 4.285E). The tracked birds nested on the ground in small reed beds and cereal fields.
The harriers were trapped using a noose-trap on a sitting pole (
In total, 14 Western marsh harriers were tracked (Table
Overview of the tracked individuals per project, their status in 2019, total number of tracking days, number of GPS fixes and biometric data.
Project | Animal id | Animal name | Sex | Date first observation | Date last observation | Status in 2019 | Tracking days | GPS fixes | Body mass (g) | Tarsus length (mm) | Wing length (mm) | Moult score |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
H_GRONINGEN | 5327085 | Job | male | 2016-06-18 | 2016-09-03 | assumed dead | 78 | 21,337 | 513 | 70 | 383 | 0000000000 |
H_GRONINGEN | 5336455 | Kjell | male | 2014-06-04 | 2014-06-23 | assumed dead | 20 | 5,420 | 540 | 74 | 406 | 5200000000 |
H_GRONINGEN | 5325667 | Roelof | male | 2014-07-04 | 2018-07-11 | unknown; tracker broken | 1,469 | 781,906 | 504 | 69 | 418 | 0000000000 |
H_GRONINGEN | 5446465 | William | male | 2012-05-10 | 2016-08-11 | assumed dead | 1,380 | 178,830 | 524 | 72 | 397 | |
MH_WATERLAND | H185298 | Almut | female | 2016-06-03 | 2016-06-13 | assumed dead | 11 | 475 | 656 | 420 | ||
MH_WATERLAND | L143472 | Ben | male | 2016-05-02 | 2017-07-15 | assumed dead | 440 | 85,924 | 571 | 404 | ||
MH_WATERLAND | L143451 | Jozef | male | 2013-06-25 | 2018-07-28 | unknown | 1,854 | 183,985 | 512 | 64 | 402 | |
MH_WATERLAND | H173481 | Mia | female | 2013-05-16 | 2013-08-02 | assumed dead | 78 | 13,209 | 785 | 77 | 430 | |
MH_WATERLAND | L143457 | Peter | male | 2013-07-22 | 2014-09-01 | assumed dead | 407 | 62,297 | 482 | 65 | 392 | |
MH_WATERLAND | L143467 | Raymond | male | 2015-05-26 | 2016-03-25 | found dead in March 2016 | 305 | 31,070 | 472 | 71 | 385 | |
MH_WATERLAND | L143473 | Walter | male | 2016-06-01 | 2016-06-08 | assumed dead | 8 | 950 | 485 | 395 | ||
MH_ANTWERPEN | H197169 | Lilla | female | 2019-04-18 | 2019-07-30 | alive | 104 | 28,181 | 810 | 80 | 426 | 0 |
MH_ANTWERPEN | L177801 | Lillo | male | 2019-05-16 | 2019-05-19 | alive | 4 | 17,046 | 520 | 72 | 410 | 0 |
MH_ANTWERPEN | H171693 | Zuzanna | female | 2018-07-18 | 2018-07-27 | unknown | 10 | 2,690 | 674 | 77 | 410 | 29 |
Harriers in the three studies were equipped with the University of Amsterdam Bird Tracking System (UvA-BiTS) developed by the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) at the University of Amsterdam. These lightweight, solar powered GPS trackers automatically record 3D position and air temperature. The built-in tri-axial accelerometer can be configured to collect body movements and bird behaviour and was deployed in the H_GRONINGEN and MH_ANTWERPEN studies. Each individual tri-axial accelerometer measurement consists of x (acceleration-raw-x), y (acceleration-raw-y) and z data points (acceleration-raw-z). Tilt values (tilt-x, tilt-y and tilt-z) are derived from the raw acceleration measurements (M), the calibration factors offset (O) and sensitivity (S).Thus acceleration for heave (tilt-z), surge (tilt-x) and sway (tilt-y) is calculated as: Az = (Mz-Oz)/Sz ; Ax = (Mx-Ox)/Sx; Ay = (My-Oy)/Sy (
Data are stored in the tracker’s 4 MB built-in flash drive. Depending on the settings, up to 60,000 GPS records can be stored in the internal memory (
Different intervals between successive GPS fixes were applied, ranging from 3 s to 30 min during the day, and 4 s to 2 h at night. In the H_GRONINGEN study, “high-resolution” GPS data with an interval of 3 s were collected during parts of the day using hourly blocks or virtual geographic fences in order to increase the positional accuracy of the GPS fixes (
Data received by the base stations are automatically harvested, post-processed, and stored in a central PostgreSQL database at UvA-BiTS (http://www.uva-bits.nl/virtual-lab), which is accessible to the involved researchers only. In order to make our data available to the whole scientific community, all tracking data are eventually published as open data. We decided to upload the data to Movebank (https://www.movebank.org) as it is a specific repository for this type of data and it is well adopted by the scientific community (
Both reference, GPS data and acceleration data of our Western marsh harrier studies were downloaded from the UvA-BiTS database using SQL queries and then transformed into the Movebank data format (
Datasets and the respective links to the Movebank studies and Zenodo data packages.
Title | Movebank study ID | Zenodo |
---|---|---|
H_GRONINGEN – Western marsh harriers (Circus aeruginosus, Accipitridae) breeding in Groningen (the Netherlands) | 922263102 | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3552507 |
MH_WATERLAND – Western marsh harriers (Circus aeruginosus, Accipitridae) breeding near the Belgium-Netherlands border | 604806671 | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3532940 |
MH_ANTWERPEN – Western marsh harriers (Circus aeruginosus, Accipitridae) breeding near Antwerp (Belgium) | 938783961 | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3550093 |
GPS fixes that are likely incorrect (i.e., outliers) are marked in two ways: manually by the researcher in the UvA-BiTS database (indicated as TRUE in manually-marked-outlier) and automatically before uploading to Movebank for GPS-fixes with speeds above 30 m/s (indicated as TRUE in import-marked-outlier). Using this approach, 376, 97 and 16 observations were marked as outliers in H_GRONINGEN, MH_WATERLAND and MH_ANTWERPEN respectively. The workflow and scripts for querying data from the UvA-BiTS database and transforming these into the Movebank data format are publicly documented on GitHub (https://github.com/inbo/bird-tracking).
Data recording
1. Researcher captures bird, takes biometrics, attaches GPS tracker, and releases bird.
2. Researcher records or updates metadata about bird, GPS tracker and deployment.
3. Researcher sets a measurement scheme, which can be updated anytime.
4. GPS tracker records data.
5. GPS tracker automatically receives new measurement settings and transmits recorded data when a connection can be established with the mobile base station.
6. Recorded data are automatically harvested, post-processed, and stored in a central PostgreSQL database at UvA-BiTS.
7. Data stream stops when birds no longer return to the nesting site or if GPS trackers no longer function.
Data publication
1. Data (reference, GPS and acceleration) are periodically exported from UvA-BiTS in the Movebank data format.
2. GPS outliers are marked.
3. Data are uploaded to the appropriate study on Movebank and made publicly available.
4. Data are exported from Movebank and archived on Zenodo, where each update is a version with a DOI.
Our data are grouped in three datasets (one dataset per study area). H_GRONINGEN is the largest dataset containing 987,493 GPS fixes in the period 2012–2018, while the MH_WATERLAND study started in 2013 with 377,910 GPS fixes until 2018, and MH_ANTWERPEN started in 2018 and contains 47,917 GPS fixes in the Movebank study for the period 2018–2019 (Figure
H_GRONINGEN dataset
• Object name: H_GRONINGEN – Western marsh harriers (Circus aeruginosus, Accipitridae) breeding in Groningen (the Netherlands)
• Format name: Movebank data format
• Format version: 2 (http://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/collection/MVB/2/)
• Language: English
• License: http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
• Usage norms: http://www.inbo.be/en/norms-for-data-use
• Publication date: 2019-11-26
• Derived from: https://www.movebank.org/cms/webapp?gwt_fragment=page=studies,path=study922263102
• DOI of version described in this paper: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3828298
• DOI for all versions: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3552507
MH_WATERLAND dataset
• Object name: MH_WATERLAND – Western marsh harriers (Circus aeruginosus, Accipitridae) breeding near the Belgium-Netherlands border
• Format name: Movebank data format
• Format version: 2 (http://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/collection/MVB/2/)
• Language: English
• License: http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
• Usage norms: http://www.inbo.be/en/norms-for-data-use
• Publication date: 2019-11-12
• Derived from: https://www.movebank.org/cms/webapp?gwt_fragment=page=studies,path=study604806671
• Source of: https://doi.org/10.15468/rbguhj (earlier version of dataset published to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility in the Darwin Core format)
• DOI of version described in this paper: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3826591
• DOI for all versions: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3532940
MH_ANTWERPEN dataset
• Object name: MH_ANTWERPEN – Western marsh harriers (Circus aeruginosus, Accipitridae) breeding near Antwerp (Belgium)
• Format name: Movebank data format
• Format version: 2 (http://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/collection/MVB/2/)
• Language: English
• License: http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
• Usage norms: http://www.inbo.be/en/norms-for-data-use
• Publication date: 2019-11-21
• Derived from: https://www.movebank.org/cms/webapp?gwt_fragment=page=studies,path=study938783961
• DOI of version described in this paper: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3827918
• DOI for all versions: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3550093
To allow anyone to use these datasets, we have released the data to the public domain under a Creative Commons Zero waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). We would appreciate however, if you read and follow these norms for data use (http://www.inbo.be/en/norms-for-data-use) and provide a link to the original dataset using the DOI whenever possible. If you use these data for a scientific paper, please cite the dataset(s) following the applicable citation norms and/or consider us for co-authorship. We are always interested to know how you have used or visualized the data, or to provide more information, so please contact us via the contact information provided in the metadata or opendata@inbo.be.
This work makes use of data and infrastructure provided by VLIZ and INBO funded by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) as part of the Belgian contribution to LifeWatch.
Code to create the graphs in this paper: https://gist.github.com/milotictanja/cbc48b9aa5fcccd54dcd3754557ca8e0
Code to process data for Movebank: https://github.com/inbo/bird-tracking