Tools to Compare Diving-Animal Kinematics with Acoustic Behavior and Exposure
Abstract
Intense international concern has arisen over the potential effects of anthropogenic sound on protected marine wildlife. To study this issue presents a challenge, however, because research animals in captivity form a limited sample set that may not always be appropriate to extrapolate to wild populations, and because most marine species spend the majority of their time submerged and out of sight of researchers. Thus instrumentation capable of monitoring free-ranging marine animals is an essential foundation for research on sound and marine wildlife. Tags, attached to marine mammals are being increasingly used to understand their underwater behavior. Typically these tags contain a package of instruments including accelerometers, magnetometers, a pressure sensor and a hydrophone. The goal of this project is to make the interpretation of this data more straightforward for scientists studying marine mammal behaviors. TrackPlot is a software package developed at the University of New Hampshire designed for the kinematic analysis of data from tags attached to marine mammals, such as Johnson s DTAG[1]. At the starting point of the grant, however, the software was little more than a promising prototype. The task for the UNH component of this project has been to transition this software into a general purpose tool for dive and kinematic pattern analysis, add integrated capabilities for acoustic analysis, and add support for multiple tags, especially the new Acousonde from Greeneridge Sciences [2]. In addition, we also proposed to make TrackPlot software robust, improve its user interface, properly document it, and release it. All of these basic objectives have been met. In some respects the accomplishments far exceed the initial objectives.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 30, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA598757
Entities
People
- Colin Ware
Organizations
- University of New Hampshire