AUTHOR=Arkwright Alexandra C. , Archibald Emma , Fahlman Andreas , Holton Mark D. , Crespo-Picazo Jose Luis , Cabedo Vicente M. , Duarte Carlos M. , Scott Rebecca , Webb Sophie , Gunner Richard M. , Wilson Rory P. TITLE=Behavioral Biomarkers for Animal Health: A Case Study Using Animal-Attached Technology on Loggerhead Turtles JOURNAL=Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution VOLUME=7 YEAR=2020 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/ecology-and-evolution/articles/10.3389/fevo.2019.00504 DOI=10.3389/fevo.2019.00504 ISSN=2296-701X ABSTRACT=
Vertebrates are recognized as sentient beings. Consequently, urgent priority is now being given to understanding the needs and maximizing the welfare of animals under human care. The general health of animals is most commonly determined by physiological indices e.g., blood sampling, but may also be assessed by documenting behavior. Physiological health assessments, although powerful, may be stressful for animals, time-consuming and costly, while assessments of behavior can also be time-consuming, subject to bias and suffer from a poorly defined link between behavior and health. However, behavior is recognized as having the potential to code for stress and well-being and could, therefore, be used as an indicator of health, particularly if the process of quantifying behavior could be objective, formalized and streamlined to be time efficient. This study used Daily Diaries (DDs) (motion-sensitive tags containing tri-axial accelerometers and magnetometers), to examine aspects of the behavior of bycaught loggerhead turtles,