Wireless sensor networks are energy constrained networks. Energy consumption in these networks can be reduced by processing the raw data at individual nodes through the application of suitable aggregation technique so that there is minimum amount of data that need to be transmitted towards the sink. The data aggregation functions that are applied should adhere to correctness, and should be computationally less complex considering the capabilities of the sensor nodes. In this paper, a brief survey on the present aggregation protocols and their impact, and some of the techniques that are applied at individual sensor nodes to reduce sensed data are presented.