I am looking for the most suitable and reliable way to measure/estimate energy expenditure in several species of seabirds.
The handling time and the logistics must be minimum, because the available resources in the study area are very limited.
Opinions?
Alejandra, how large are the birds? If they can be constrained in a respirometry chamber, standard indirect calorimetry should work straight forwardly. If using pull-mode, you don't even need a completely sealed chamber, any card board box or bag(?!) would work as a chamber (I measured my dog in her own crate shrink wrapped). Portable gas analyzers will take care of the measurements. Note that this necessarily would be a spot measurement (incl. the handling stress related MR increment), unless you want to keep the bird in the chamber for hours.
Disclaimer: I work for a manufacturer of indirect calorimetry equipment.
I am afraid that this is too much handling... and we are interested also in flying.
But thanks for the suggestion!!
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