Premium
DIVE DATA FROM SATELLITE TAGS AND TIME‐DEPTH RECORDERS: A COMPARISON IN WEDDELL SEAL PUPS
Author(s) -
Burns Jennifer M.,
Castellini Michael A.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
marine mammal science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.723
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1748-7692
pISSN - 0824-0469
DOI - 10.1111/j.1748-7692.1998.tb00760.x
Subject(s) - telemetry , duration (music) , satellite , environmental science , geography , computer science , telecommunications , engineering , literature , aerospace engineering , art
A bstract The diving behavior of juvenile Weddell seals, Leptonychotes weddellii , was monitored simultaneously with time‐depth recorders (TDRs) and satellitelinked time‐depth recorders (SLTDRs). Recovered TDRs provided a complete record of the depth and duration of all dives, while data received from SLTDR tags via the ARGOS satellite system were compressed into the number of dives in each of six depth or duration bins. The dive information from the two types of tags was compared to determine if data compression, processing, and transmission influenced the data received. While only half of the dive data collected by TDRs was also received from the SLTDR tags, the chance of receiving SLTDR data was independent of when diving occurred, when data was transmitted, and the subsequent dive activity. In addition, the number of dives in each depth and duration bin was an accurate representation of the actual dive behavior. Therefore, SLTDR tags were judged to provide data qualitatively similar to that provided by TDRs. The accuracy of seal locations provided by Service ARGOS was estimated by comparison to Global Positioning System (GPS) locations, and the average position error found to be significantly greater than predicted by Service ARGOS or reported in other studies (LCO locations ± 11.4 km, LC1 ± 5.0 km).