Direct marking and tracking of wildlife using telemetry is widespread and critical to understanding many aspects of wildlife ecology. For most species, researchers must select between multiple tracking technologies that represent trade‐offs among data requirements, mass, and cost. Options tend to be more limited for smaller, volant species. We developed and tested a unique combination of a store‐on‐board Global Positioning System logger with an independent very‐high‐frequency (VHF) tag (hereafter, hybrid tag) fitted on the greater sage‐grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) with a modified harness design in northeastern Wyoming, USA, 2017–2018. We compared hybrid tags with other tracking technologies commonly used in avian research, namely VHF and Argos satellite relay tags. Given our research objectives, that required both frequent location data and field‐based observational data, we found the hybrid tags were the most cost‐effective option and capable of collecting more location data compared with Argos tags because of power savings associated with data transmission. Cost savings allowed us to avoid sacrificing sample size while still obtaining high‐resolution location data in addition to field‐based observational data such as the presence of chicks. We believe our hybrid tags and harness design would be beneficial to research on other avian species of comparable size to the greater sage‐grouse and those that are relatively localized year‐round, including many other Galliformes. © 2020 The Wildlife Society.

中文翻译：

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耦合跟踪技术可最大化禽类研究的效率

使用遥测技术直接标记和跟踪野生动植物是广泛的，对于理解野生动植物生态学的许多方面至关重要。对于大多数物种，研究人员必须在代表数据需求，质量和成本之间权衡的多种跟踪技术之间进行选择。对于较小的，动荡的物种，选择往往受到更多限制。我们开发并测试了车载全球定位系统记录器与安装在较大鼠尾草（Centocercus urophasianus）上的独立超高频（VHF）标签（以下称为混合标签）的独特组合。），并在2017-2018年间在美国怀俄明州东北部进行了改进的线束设计。我们将混合标签与鸟类研究中常用的其他跟踪技术（即VHF和Argos卫星中继标签）进行了比较。鉴于我们的研究目标既需要频繁的位置数据又需要基于实地的观测数据，我们发现混合标签是最具成本效益的选择，与Argos标签相比，由于与数据传输相关的功耗节省，因此能够收集更多的位置数据。节省成本使我们能够避免牺牲样本大小，同时还能获得基于现场的观测数据（如雏鸡的存在）之外的高分辨率位置数据。我们认为，我们的杂种标签和吊具设计将有助于研究其他鼠类，其大小与鼠尾草相当，而全年相对本地化，包括许多其他鸡形目。©2020野生动物协会。