Electronic tracking devices Applications in Biology
In recent years, new wildlife tracking and asset GPS tracking device have become available, allowing remote data capture from a steadily increasing number of taxa, species and individual animals. This has resulted in a substantial increase in the volume of data gathered by researchers, environmental monitoring programs and public agencies. In the future, one can expect an almost exponential increase in collected data as new sensors, e.g. to monitor health status, interactions among individuals, or other animal-centred variables, are integrated into current biologging systems on animals. Data can be remotely transferred to operators (e.g. using Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) networks or satellite systems such as Argos, Globalstar and Iridium), making near real-time monitoring of animals possible. Furthermore, positional information can now be complemented with a wide range of other information about the animals’ environment made available by satellite remote sensing, meteorological models and other environmental observation systems.
The information embedded in animal-borne data sets is enormous and could be made available in a wider societal context than wildlife research or management. However, there is still a lack of suitable infrastructures to collect, store and efficiently share these data. In this chapter, and in the rest of the book, we offer a solution for a subset of animal-borne information, i.e. wildlife tracking data. With this term, we mainly refer to Global Positioning System (GPS)-based radiotelemetry. ‘GPS’ is here a synonym for all different existing or upcoming global navigation satellite system (GNSS)-based animal tracking systems. Most of the concepts and tools proposed in this book, however are also valid for other tracking systems (e.g. very high frequency (VHF) telemetry, radio frequency identification (RFID) systems, echolocation).
One important biological application of the electronic tracking devices is in ecological and behavioral studies where GPS-tagged wild animals, including certain fish, cetaceans, seals, and sea turtles, are tracked. The GPS-equipped tags must frequently communicate the animal’s position data, plus recorded behavioral measurements, via a radio link to a data-compiling station (on the Earth’s surface, or to a satellite, thence to an Earth station). One application of GPS radio tags has been the tracking of great white sharks off the Californian and Mexican coasts. This work has been done by Michael Domeier, sponsored by the National Geographic Society (NOAA 2010). After catching a shark, the fish is lifted from the water and unhooked and then measured, blood and tissue samples taken, and a GPS radio tag is literally bolted to its dorsal fin before release. Every effort is taken to minimize stress on the shark. The tag periodically samples parameters such as shark depth and water temperature, and when the shark surfaces with its dorsal fin and tag antenna in the air, the tag senses the antenna is in air and it broadcasts its GPS coordinates plus time, date, and sample data to an ARGOS SV. These GPS radio tags are reported to have a functional lifetime of ca. 6 years, giving behavioral biologists and ecologists a long-term record of a shark’s feeding, migration, and mating behavior.
Long-life GPS Tracking Device have also been used to track ocean sunfish (Mola mola) in the Western Atlantic. These GPS tags transmit to the ARGOS satellite system when on the surface. The sunfish GPS tags were attached behind the fish’s dorsal fin to its body with a 1.5 m long permanent monofilament tether. The tag body was roughly conical, 15 cm long by 80 mm in diameter; the ARGOS satellite antenna was 17.1 cm in length. Sunfish like to bask at the ocean surface, giving the tag good opportunities to broadcast data, but they also have been observed to dive as deep as 472 m.
The information embedded in animal-borne data sets is enormous and could be made available in a wider societal context than wildlife research or management. However, there is still a lack of suitable infrastructures to collect, store and efficiently share these data. In this chapter, and in the rest of the book, we offer a solution for a subset of animal-borne information, i.e. wildlife tracking data. With this term, we mainly refer to Global Positioning System (GPS)-based radiotelemetry. ‘GPS’ is here a synonym for all different existing or upcoming global navigation satellite system (GNSS)-based animal tracking systems. Most of the concepts and tools proposed in this book, however are also valid for other tracking systems (e.g. very high frequency (VHF) telemetry, radio frequency identification (RFID) systems, echolocation).
One important biological application of the electronic tracking devices is in ecological and behavioral studies where GPS-tagged wild animals, including certain fish, cetaceans, seals, and sea turtles, are tracked. The GPS-equipped tags must frequently communicate the animal’s position data, plus recorded behavioral measurements, via a radio link to a data-compiling station (on the Earth’s surface, or to a satellite, thence to an Earth station). One application of GPS radio tags has been the tracking of great white sharks off the Californian and Mexican coasts. This work has been done by Michael Domeier, sponsored by the National Geographic Society (NOAA 2010). After catching a shark, the fish is lifted from the water and unhooked and then measured, blood and tissue samples taken, and a GPS radio tag is literally bolted to its dorsal fin before release. Every effort is taken to minimize stress on the shark. The tag periodically samples parameters such as shark depth and water temperature, and when the shark surfaces with its dorsal fin and tag antenna in the air, the tag senses the antenna is in air and it broadcasts its GPS coordinates plus time, date, and sample data to an ARGOS SV. These GPS radio tags are reported to have a functional lifetime of ca. 6 years, giving behavioral biologists and ecologists a long-term record of a shark’s feeding, migration, and mating behavior.
Long-life GPS Tracking Device have also been used to track ocean sunfish (Mola mola) in the Western Atlantic. These GPS tags transmit to the ARGOS satellite system when on the surface. The sunfish GPS tags were attached behind the fish’s dorsal fin to its body with a 1.5 m long permanent monofilament tether. The tag body was roughly conical, 15 cm long by 80 mm in diameter; the ARGOS satellite antenna was 17.1 cm in length. Sunfish like to bask at the ocean surface, giving the tag good opportunities to broadcast data, but they also have been observed to dive as deep as 472 m.
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