Development of remote observation system for studying the ecology of marine animals

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K14793
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Aquatic bioproduction science
• Research Institution: National Institute of Polar Research
• Principal Investigator: Takahashi Akinori 国立極地研究所, 研究教育系, 准教授 (40413918)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): NAITO Yasuhiko 国立極地研究所, 名誉教授 (80017087)
• Research Collaborator: ADACHI Taiki 東京大学, 理学系研究科・日本学術振興会, 特別研究員PD (20756176) ; COSTA Daniel カリフォルニア大学・サンタクルーズ校, 教授 ; ROBINSON Patrick カリフォルニア大学・サンタクルーズ校, 講師
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 海洋生態 / 動物行動 / バイオロギング

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Marine animals are often difficult to observe directly, and a remote observation system via satellite link is needed to advance their ecological studies. However, data transmission capacity of satellites is limited and it is important to obtain maximal amount of key ecological information summarized in small amount of transmitted data. We therefore developed data loggers to summarize the information on prey captures from the event recordings of characteristic acceleration signals and the information on prey species from limited amount of video data using acceleration-trigger system to start video recordings. We successfully applied these techniques on northern elephant seals to obtain information about the frequency and depth of prey captures as well as prey species during seals’ foraging migrations over North Pacific.

Free Research Field

動物生態学