Biologging and Biotelemetry: Tools for Understanding the Lives and Environments of Marine Animals

Abstract

Addressing important questions in animal ecology, physiology, and environmental science often requires in situ information from wild animals. This difficulty is being overcome by biologging and biotelemetry, or the use of miniaturized animal-borne sensors. Although early studies recorded only simple parameters of animal movement, advanced devices and analytical methods can now provide rich information on individual and group behavior, internal states, and the surrounding environment of free-ranging animals, especially those in marine systems. We summarize the history of technologies used to track marine animals. We then identify seven major research categories of marine biologging and biotelemetry and explain significant achievements, as well as future opportunities. Big data approaches via international collaborations will be key to tackling global environmental issues (e.g., climate change impacts), and curiosity about the secret lives of marine animals will also remain a major driver of biologging and biotelemetry studies.

Animal-borne soundscape logger as a system for edge classification of sound sources and data transmission for monitoring near-real-time underwater soundscape

“…These turtles, mature females coming ashore for nesting, had an average straight carapace length (SCL) of about 100 cm, aligning with previous studies on the same nesting beach that reported an average weight of 131 kg (based on measurements of 120–153 kg, average 131 kg, N = 6; Okuyama et al, unpublished data and Obe et al 57 ). This proportion falls comfortably within the traditionally recommended limit of 3–5% of body weight for attachments 58 , a guideline designed to minimize behavioral impacts. We took care to select turtles without limb injuries or deformities for logger attachment, and all loggers were successfully retrieved after observing the turtles’ normal nesting behavior on their return.…”

Allometric Growth of the Enigmatic Deep-Sea Megamouth Shark Megachasma pelagios Taylor, Compagno, and Struhsaker, 1983 (Lamniformes, Megachasmidae)

“…To capture such dense swarms, suction or engulfment feeding modes are more efficient than the ram-feeding mode employed by basking sharks [56]. Nevertheless, as Watanabe and Papastamatiou [11] noted, the feeding behavior of megamouth sharks should be directly observed by biologging technology with animal-borne video cameras [64] in future studies to resolve this debate.…”

Intent matters: how flow and forms of information impact collective navigation

“…Advances in remote sensing technology are bringing novel data sources to the study of animal migration, allowing tracking of species within highly complex and inaccessible environments such as the ocean at ground-breaking spatio-temporal resolutions [ 53 ]. Using this data, coupled with ocean forecasting models, is providing new insights into how animals behave on long-distance migrations.…”