by John P. Rafferty

During the climactic scene in the movie Twister (1996), Bill Harding (Bill Paxton) and Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) drive a pickup truck into the path of an approaching F5 tornado. The back of the pickup holds a container of sensors that are sucked up by the tornado, allowing members of their research team to observe how the winds on the inside of a tornado behave.

Honeybee fitted with miniature sensor--courtesy CSIRO

Honeybee fitted with miniature sensor–courtesy CSIRO

Sensors of different kinds can be similarly attached to animals to observe their behavior. Larger animals have been tracked for decades—through the use of devices such as radio collars and ear tags—which has provided insight into their feeding and denning habits, as well as helped to define the geographic extent of their individual territories. But what about smaller animals, such as small birds and insects?

Certainly, if scientists could follow the movements of these animals, they could discover the answers to numerous secrets to their behavior, such as how they avoid predators, how pest insects exploit croplands, and where they feed and nest. Thus far, one of the largest challenges facing scientists interested in tracking smaller animals has been the size of the tracker, or tag, attached to the animal. If the tag is too heavy, it encumbers the animal, changing its behavior by forcing it to move slowly or not quite as far.

Mountain lion with radio collar--Claire Dobert/USFWS

Mountain lion with radio collar–Claire Dobert/USFWS

Every now and then, nature programs on television show researchers, such as British naturalist Richard Attenborough, carrying handheld antennae used to track animals fitted with radio wave–emitting tags. Radio tracking typically requires the attachment of relatively bulky collars or tags, which also have to accommodate batteries, so this kind of animal tracking has been limited to larger animals until a few years ago. Despite the weight limitations, radio tracking has enabled researchers to track multiple animals simultaneously, because each tag can be assigned a slightly different radio frequency.

Ongoing technological miniaturization has allowed the creation of lightweight transmitters that can be surgically implanted in some animals (such as snakes) or worn as “backpacks” by birds and other wildlife to illuminate their denning and nesting locations. Even smaller micro-transmitters (0.3 gram [0.01 ounce]) have been attached to animals as small as dragonflies (which can be tracked by scientists in aircraft, no less); the research revealed that dragonflies prefer to fly during the daytime and do not fly in windy conditions.

Nevertheless, radio-transmitting tags suffer from a major limitation: they must carry their own power source. With the advent of micro-transmitters, this seems to be less of a problem; however, an alternative technique called harmonic radar may be the answer to tracking some types of smaller and medium-sized insects. In fact, it has been used to monitor the movements of the emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis), stinkbugs (such as Nezara viridula), honeybees (Apis), several different species of beetles, moths and butterflies, and flies.

Harpalus pennsylvanicus (Pennsylvania dingy ground beetle) with diode glued to forewing--courtesy Dr. Matthew O'Neal

Harpalus pennsylvanicus (Pennsylvania dingy ground beetle) with diode glued to forewing–courtesy Dr. Matthew O’Neal

The harmonic radar technique uses a transmitter/ receiver that sends a signal to a tiny tag (which can be as small as 16 mm [0.6 inch] long and weigh as little as 0.008 gram [0.0003 ounce]) attached to the insect. Some studies use small sticky plastic pads with adhesives on both sides to attach the tag to the animal. Harmonic radar tags do not contain batteries. Instead, each tag contains a small diode attached to an antenna. The diode that takes the energy from the radar beam and converts the signal to a slightly different wavelength that returns to the transmitter/receiver. The location of the converted signal can be tracked by the receiver, and the animal’s position at a given time can be marked and overlain on maps.

Harmonic radar systems can be portable, like the RECCO Rescue Systems transmitter/receiver, which was initially developed to help rescuers find skiers trapped in avalanches. (Skiers in avalanche-prone areas would need to wear the harmonic radar tag in their clothing.) Handheld systems like the RECCO system are useful when tracking insects that do not migrate quickly, such as ground-dwelling beetles, because the effective range of these systems are limited to about 10–20 metres (roughly 33–66 feet) and from 30 to 50 metres (98 to 164 feet) for flying insects. Stationary harmonic radar systems, on the other hand, have longer ranges; they can detect the location of a tag approximately 1 km (0.6 mile) away.

Harmonic radar is not a silver bullet, however. Unlike systems using radio waves, harmonic radar systems cannot separate the paths of one tagged insect from another in the same time period. Tracking swarm behavior could be done using harmonic radar, but studying the habits of individual tagged animals at the same time could be confusing if the paths overlap.

Advances in insect tracking continue. It is no longer limited to bulky transmitting/receiving equipment and heavy tags that impede the movement of the animal being studied. Despite their strengths and weaknesses, the two types of tracking systems described above are useful tools in helping scientists find out what animals do with their time and how exactly they do it.

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