Benthic animal-borne sensors and citizen science combine to validate ocean modelling (original) (raw)
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Seals as collectors of oceanographic data in the coastal zone
2012
Understanding spatial and temporal variation in water temperatures in the coastal zone is generally limited as conventional monitoring platforms often prove problematic in these areas e.g. shallow depths limit access by research vessels, and issues of accuracy and resolution can affect the use of remotely sensed sea surface temperature data. As a result most currently available data on sea temperature are from offshore waters while coastal areas have remained relatively unexplored. Water temperature is an important parameter to study in these coastal waters, considering its impact and influence on the timing and frequency of harmful algal blooms and their associated impacts on aquaculture. It is a significant factor in the timing of the Spring bloom and primary productivity, with consequent influences on the entire marine food web. Advances in bio-logging technologies in recent years have provided opportunities for sensor deployment on a variety of marine animals, including marine mammals, sea birds, fish and turtles, to gather data from inaccessible areas. In this study, we explored the use of telemetry-derived data from instrumented seals in Kenmare Bay in southwest Irish waters to ascertain if seals can be used as sampling platforms in oceanographic studies in the coastal zone and to examine fine scale changes in water temperatures. High spatial and temporal measurements allowed the characterisation of the water dynamics in the estuarine area by the identification of processes such as thermal stratification, up/downwellings and the onset of the thermocline, and provide unique insights into the marine environment in and around the bay, where no previous oceanographic studies have been conducted. Strong correlation between the seal-derived temperature data and in-situ temperature recorders and modelled data validates the use of seals as oceanographic platforms on different spatial scales.
Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 2001
Data-recording tags applied to marine animals store data for later retrieval and can return valuable information on animal behavior and ecology, including habitat preference, physiology, and movement patterns, as well as environmental data. If properly instrumented, calibrated, and archived, data from these tags can add to the oceanographic datastream for parts of the ocean where data are sparse or lacking. Such data, from northern elephant seals instrumented with time-temperature-depth recorders (TTDR) and ARGOS platform terminal transmitters, is examined in this study. Northern elephant seals range widely over the northeastern Pacific on long foraging trips. The seals dive continuously on these trips to depths of 400-600 m.
Animal-Borne Telemetry: An Integral Component of the Ocean Observing Toolkit
Frontiers in Marine Science, 2019
Animal telemetry is a powerful tool for observing marine animals and the physical environments that they inhabit, from coastal and continental shelf ecosystems to polar seas and open oceans. Satellite-linked biologgers and networks of acoustic receivers allow animals to be reliably monitored over scales of tens of meters to thousands of kilometers, giving insight into their habitat use, home range size, the phenology of migratory patterns and the biotic and abiotic factors that drive their distributions. Furthermore, physical environmental variables can be collected using animals as autonomous sampling platforms, increasing spatial and temporal coverage of global oceanographic observation systems. The use of animal telemetry, therefore, has the capacity to provide measures from a suite of essential ocean variables (EOVs) for improved monitoring of Earth's oceans. Here we outline the design features of animal telemetry systems, describe current applications and their benefits and challenges, and discuss future directions. We describe new analytical techniques that improve our ability to not only quantify animal movements but to also provide a powerful framework for comparative studies across taxa. We discuss the application of animal telemetry and its capacity to collect biotic and abiotic data, how the data collected can be incorporated into ocean observing systems, and the role these data can play in improved ocean management.
Proceedings of OceanObs'09: Sustained Ocean Observations and Information for Society, 2010
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Ocean tracking technologies: observing species at risk
Maritime Studies, 2016
The Ocean Tracking Network is a major global project to establish tracking of endangered fish and marine mammal species through acoustic telemetry. The project has only begun to generate the policy-related outcomes that may be utilized as benchmarks for evaluating the success of the project. We propose that projects like this one make technical advances before scientific ones, and that scientific advances may be quite long term. Further, the development of policy outcomes is shaped by the larger political economies in which the technologies are located; scientists are quite used to "flying under the radar", waiting for more propitious circumstances. There are serious questions regarding which actors are capable of making matters of fact issues of public debate.
The main purpose of this workshop was to look at ways to make the best use of coastal cetacean sightings data in monitoring and research, for example to improve our knowledge about diversity, distribution, local abundance and habitat use of cetaceans, including the detection of temporal and spatial trends. This included consideration of ways to integrate different data sets to provide information at a larger scale, including possible common protocols and data formats to facilitate future integration.The workshop brought together data providers, analysts and data users, to share their knowledge and experience, and to discuss best practice in training, data collection, quality control and analysis. Discussions included consideration of standards and mechanisms to permit combination of data from different sources, and ways in which citizen science data on cetacean sightings could support conservation and research.
Implications of tag positioning and performance on the analysis of cetacean movement
Animal Biotelemetry, 2019
Background: Satellite-linked animal-borne tags enable the study of free-ranging marine mammals. These tags can only transmit data while their antenna is above the surface for a sufficient amount of time. Thus, the position of the tag on the animal's body will likely influence the quality and the quantity of location estimates. We explored the effects of tag placement and tag performance on the analysis of cetacean movement, by deploying two identical Argos tags 33 cm apart on the dorsal fin of a male killer whale in Norway in January 2017. Results: The highest placed (top tag) generated 540 location estimates, while the lowest placed tag (bottom tag) generated 245 locations. In addition, the top tag generated locations of higher quality, with less than 50% of the location estimates in Argos class B (the class with the highest estimated uncertainty), compared to the bottom tag (90% Argos class B locations). The distance between two reconstructed paths ranged from 81 m to 31 km. The path based on the top tag was 1.5 times longer, yielding a higher average speed and more extreme turning angles. The estimated uncertainty around the top track was smaller than that of the bottom track. Switches between searching and travelling behaviour, based on data from the top and the bottom tags, occurred at different positions and times. A significant relationship between core utilization areas and a simulated environmental variable was detectable at a finer spatial scale using data collected by the top tag compared to the bottom tag. A literature search yielded no evidence that tag performance or tag placement is commonly discussed in killer whale telemetry articles. Conclusions: The differences in quality and quantity of location estimates from our two tags had a substantial effect on derived movement metrics, behavioural inferences and significance of a simulated environmental variable. These differences in tag performance are likely linked to the height difference in tag placement of 33 cm. We suggest that tag positioning on free-ranging marine mammals and tag performance should be considered as a covariate in telemetry studies, especially at a fine scale.