Cryptic behaviour and activity cycles of a small mammal keystone species revealed through accelerometry: a case study of Merriam’s kangaroo rats

Kangaroo rats are among the most abundant vertebrates in many terrestrial ecosystems in Western North America and are considered both keystone species and ecosystem engineers, providing linkages to other species as both consumers and resources. We developed an integrative miniaturized animal-borne accelerometry/radiotelemetry approach to quantify the cryptic behaviour and activity cycles of kangaroo rats. Our study highlights a method of attachment and retrieval for deploying accelerometers, a non-disruptive method of gathering observational validation datasets for acceleration data on free-ranging nocturnal small mammals, and a case study for analyzing how behavioural patterns relate to abiotic factors. We found that Merriam’s kangaroo rats are only active during later light phases of the night, show no reduction in activity or foraging associated with moonlight (indicating that kangaroo rats are actually more lunarphilic than lunarphobic) and increased foraging effort on more humid ni..., We used these files to create our machine-learning models in the open-access software Accelerater. ,