Scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and Wildlife Computers, Inc. announced the release of a new activity data product application for marine animal tracking. The technology is designed to remotely track and transmit data gathered on an animal’s activity levels over several months along with the temperatures and depths they experienced.
Determining if and how marine animals change their activity levels in response to varying environmental conditions like temperature is important for understanding and predicting their responses to global warming and other environmental changes.
“The new feature available on the Wildlife Computers MiniPAT pop-up tag has an integrated accelerometer for measuring activity, and its onboard software computes a summarized value of overall activity level, which can be transmitted to satellites,” said Rachel Skubel, the study’s lead author and a Doctoral student at UM’s Abess Center for Ecosystem Science & Policy. “The Activity Time Series (ATS) data product allows us to determine when the tagged animal is switching from slow to fast swimming and vice versa.”
Read more: University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science
Cobia (Rachycentron canadum) equipped with ATS enabled PSAT during captive validation trials. (Photo Credit: Matt Bernanke - SharkTagging.com)