Immune-challenged wild mallards move less and spend more time in sheltered habitats

Background

Sickness behaviour is an important component of the response to disease and can influence how animals move through and use their environment. Such changes in behaviour may have consequences for animal ecology and, in species that serve as important hosts for infectious diseases, potentially affect disease dynamics. However, studying sickness behaviour in free-ranging animals remains challenging because it requires identifying when animals are sick while simultaneously tracking their behaviour in their natural environment.