SMS seal: A new technique to measure haul-out behaviour in marine vertebrates

Many marine vertebrates, including pinnipeds, turtles and birds, spend periods of time ashore during their life cycles. Quantification of time spent ashore is important for estimating population parameters such as abundance and productivity in some species, but can prove to be a difficult task. Here...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology
Main Authors: Cronin, MA, McConnell, Bernie J
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2008
Subjects:
GSM
haul-out behaviour
telemetry
HARBOR SEALS
PHOCA-VITULINA
COMMON SEALS
POPULATION-SIZE
GREEN TURTLES
ABUNDANCE
CONSTRAINTS
MOVEMENTS
ALASKA
PENGUINS
Phoca vitulina
Alaska
Online Access:https://research-portal.st-andrews.ac.uk/en/researchoutput/sms-seal-a-new-technique-to-measure-haulout-behaviour-in-marine-vertebrates(7c87fac9-55ef-4dc8-9e1f-97261c9477b4).html
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jembe.2008.05.010
http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=46649097578&partnerID=8YFLogxK
Description
Summary:Many marine vertebrates, including pinnipeds, turtles and birds, spend periods of time ashore during their life cycles. Quantification of time spent ashore is important for estimating population parameters such as abundance and productivity in some species, but can prove to be a difficult task. Here we describe a novel telemetry system based on Global Systems for Mobile Communications (GSM), to provide detailed information on the haul-out behaviour of tagged animals. We tested the system on harbour seals in southwest Ireland. The GSM telemetry system proved an effective means of obtaining information on the haul-out activity of harbour seals in the study area and of providing crude movement information that was less labour intensive than VHF telemetry and provides an alternative means of data acquisition offering some advantages over satellite telemetry. The GSM tag with its internal antennae is more robust than a satellite tag. The GSM networks allow more information to be relayed, so the “cost per bit of data” is reduced. Moreover, the large global investment in GSM networks have resulted in a telemetry technology with low running costs and therefore with significantly lower costs of data acquisition via GSM relative to Argos systems. With the ever-expanding global GSM network coverage the system has significant potential applications in behavioural studies of amphibious vertebrates, such as estimating clutch frequency in sea turtles.

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