For most people, the sea
is a deep, dark mystery. That is changing, though, as scientists find
innovative ways to track the movements of ocean-going creatures.
Stanford marine sciences professor and Stanford Woods Institute
Senior Fellow Barbara Block is using technology to enable live feeds of
animal movements relayed by a series of “ocean WiFi hotspots.” This
could help protect marine ecosystems by revolutionizing how we
understand their function, population structure, fisheries management
and species’ physiological and evolutionary constraints.
Block
will explain how she is studying pelagic creatures with telemetry tags,
and how she plane to “wire” the ocean at the annual American
Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Boston. Her
talk, “Building a Wired Ocean With Electronic Tagged Animals and Mobile
Gliders,” will be part of a symposium called “Networks of Discovery:
Delivering Unsurpassed Insight Into Changing Global Ecosystems” from
1:30 to 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 17 in room 312 of the Hynes Convention Center.
The miniaturization of sensors for tags, combined with acoustic
receiver-carrying mobile glider platforms and instrumented buoys, has
vastly expanded our capacity to obtain data from oceans at levels as
small as bacteria and as large as blue whales. Block’s work is part of a
larger effort to establish a global network of instruments to more
comprehensively study the biosphere as it is altered – at unprecedented
rates – by human activity and climate change.
Block’s project, the Blue Serengeti Initiative, builds on the Tagging
of Pacific Predators program, part of the global Census of Marine Life,
a decade-long study that invested $25 million in electronic tagging,
enabling marine scientists from five nations to map ocean hot spots
within the California Current.
At the AAAS meeting in Boston, Block will discuss her new project and
explain how she uses wireless devices track the comings and goings of
key ocean species.
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