Bio-telemetry from small tags attached to animals is one of the principal methods for studying the ecology and behaviour of wildlife. The field has constantly evolved over the last 80 years as technological improvement enabled a diversity of sensors to be integrated into the tags (e.g., GPS, accelerometers, etc.). However, retrieving data from tags on free-ranging animals remains a challenge since satellite and GSM networks are relatively expensive and or power hungry. Recently a new class of low-power communication networks have been developed and deployed worldwide to connect the internet of things (IoT). Here, we evaluated one of these, the Sigfox IoT network, for the potential as a real-time multi-sensor data retrieval and tag commanding system for studying fauna across a diversity of species and ecosystems. We tracked 312 individuals across 30 species (from 25 g bats to 3 t elephants) with seven different device concepts, resulting in more than 177,742 successful transmissions. We found a maximum line of sight communication distance of 280 km (on a flying cape vulture [Gyps coprotheres]), which sets a new documented record for animal-borne digital data transmission using terrestrial infrastructure. The average transmission success rate amounted to 68.3% (SD 22.1) on flying species and 54.1% (SD 27.4) on terrestrial species. In addition to GPS data, we also collected and transmitted data products from accelerometers, barometers, and thermometers. Further, we assessed the performance of Sigfox Atlas Native, a low-power method for positional estimates based on radio signal strengths and found a median accuracy of 12.89 km (MAD 5.17) on animals. We found that robust real-time communication (median message delay of 1.49 s), the extremely small size of the tags (starting at 1.28 g without GPS), and the low power demands (as low as 5.8 µAh per transmitted byte) unlock new possibilities for ecological data collection and global animal observation.

Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour University of Konstanz 78464 Constance Germany

Department of Agriculture Land Reform and Rural Development P O Box 12 Skukuza 1350 South Africa

Department of Biology University of Konstanz 78464 Constance Germany

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Yale University 165 Prospect Street New Haven CT 06511 USA

Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources North Carolina State University Raleigh NC 27607 USA

Department of Game Management and Wildlife Biology Czech University of Life Science 165 00 Prague Czech Republic

Department of Migration Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior 78315 Radolfzell Germany

Department of Veterinary Tropical Diseases Faculty of Veterinary Science University of Pretoria Private Bag X04 Soutpan Road Pretoria 0110 South Africa

Institute of Wildlife Biology and Game Department of Integrative Biology and Biodiversity Research University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences 1180 Vienna Austria

North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences Raleigh NC 27601 USA

Product Development Group Zurich ETH Zürich Leonhardstr 21 8092 Zurich Switzerland

Scientific Services South African National Parks Skukuza 1350 South Africa

Section for Zoology Natural History Museum of Denmark University of Copenhagen 2100 Copenhagen OE Denmark

Vulpro NpC Vulture Programme Plot 121 Boekenhoutkloof Road Rietfontein 0216 South Africa

Zoo Salzburg 5081 Anif Austria

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Accelerometer-based detection of African swine fever infection in wild boar