Credit: Jeff Miller.
Sharks are known to change their activity levels according to varying environmental conditions (Schlaff, Huepeul, & Simpfendorfer, 2014). However, the complex lives of sharks are hidden beneath the surface. The sheer vastness of the ocean makes it difficult to monitor sharks’ natural behavior.
Studying activity levels in sharks is a challenge for shark scientists. Some shark tags have integrated accelerometers capable of measuring shark activity levers. However, shark researchers must find a way to retrieve tags and download the accelerometer data.
Definition: Accelerometer- an instrument for measuring acceleration.
Led by Ph.D. candidate Rachel Skubel, a team of scientists from the University of Miami, ASU, FIU, and Wildlife Computers created a new activity data product application for marine animal tracking. The team developed a new tag with onboard software that computes a summarized value of the overall activity level, transmitted to satellites.
The new tag can remotely track and transmit data gathered on a shark’s activity levels over several months, along with the temperatures and depths they experienced (Skubel et al., 2020).
The tags were tested on sandbar sharks. After one month, the tags popped off as programmed and successfully transmitted the sharks’ activity data along with their environmental conditions and locations.
Now, we can remotely track species to understand how they respond to climate change.
“The ability to now remotely track how animals are behaviorally responding to changes in environmental conditions over several months and across vast expanses of the open ocean really opens up a lot of new research opportunities,” said Neil Hammerschlag, research associate professor at the UM Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science and UM Abess Center for Ecosystem Science & Policy.
Schlaff, A.M., Heupel, M.R. & Simpfendorfer, C.A. Influence of environmental factors on shark and ray movement, behaviour and habitat use: a review. Rev Fish Biol Fisheries 24, 1089–1103 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11160-014-9364-8
Skubel, R.A., Wilson, K., Papastamatiou, Y.P. et al. A scalable, satellite-transmitted data product for monitoring high-activity events in mobile aquatic animals. Anim Biotelemetry 8, 34 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40317-020-00220-0