IDBR Type B: Life-long vital rate telemetry in marine homeotherms

阿拉斯加海洋生物中心(阿拉斯加Seward，AK)获奖，以开发一种微型、可植入、终身的暖体海洋动物生命频率监测器。这项研究将为一名博士后研究员和一名技术研究助理提供参与多学科科技融合的机会，并将技术创新应用于促进创新的生物学研究。通过定制教育和外展一揽子计划，将把技术创新和生物研究之间的发展努力和联系带给广大公众，包括新仪器的潜在用户、其他科学家、所有年龄段的公众以及6-12年级的学童。外展一揽子计划将加强现有的、符合标准的STEM课程，可从特定项目的网站下载。通过在该网站上增加一个地理参考数据和信息门户网站(通过单独出资正在开发中，将于2016年上线)，结合区域可用的资源(分散的课堂活动资料包)和远程访问的培训机会，将把现代科学和技术学习机会带到阿拉斯加服务不足的农村教室。生命历史发送器(LHX标签)的目的是确定宿主动物的存活、原因和死亡位置。在雌性宿主中，lhx标签还决定了它们第一只幼崽出生时的年龄和一生中出生的幼崽数量。海洋构成了地球生物圈的大部分，海洋生态系统面临着潜在的巨大变化，这些变化是由自然和人为因素推动的，包括自然资源的利用和气候变化。复杂海洋生态系统的变化原因和影响之间的许多联系，特别是涉及顶级消费者及其捕食者和猎物的影响，仍然知之甚少，这主要是因为缺乏可行的方法来观察许多海洋物种，这些物种大部分时间生活在海上或水下。为了克服这一困难，在之前的IDBR资金支持下，开发了一种新的监测设备，使之能够通过单一仪器收集捕食、存活和雌性生殖数据，无论宿主可能转移到哪里、觅食、繁殖和死亡。这一新的遥测装置首次在海上直接确定大型海洋捕食者的捕食率，是在寄主死亡后才启动的卫星传输，在此基础上，该项目将提高能力，并使生命史传送器的制作成为可能，以便对许多感兴趣和关切的顶级物种进行协作研究。这将使来自广大潜在用户社区的研究人员能够构思和应用新的实验设计，以极大地促进我们对海洋生态系统、食物链联系以及许多未解决的知识差距中的消费者驱动和资源驱动效应的理解。

An award is made to the Alaska SeaLife Center (Seward, AK) to develop a miniaturized, implantable, life-long vital rate monitor for warm-bodied marine animals. This study will provide one postdoctoral researcher and a technical research associate the opportunity to participate in the multi-disciplinary integration of science and technology, and the application of technological innovation to promoting innovative biological research. Through a custom education and outreach package, the development efforts and linkages between technological innovation and biological research will be brought to a broad public audience including potential users of the new instrument, other scientists, public people of all ages, as well as grades 6-12 school children. The outreach package will enhance an existing, standards conforming STEM curriculum, downloadable from a project-specific website. Through addition of a geo-referenced data and information portal to this website (under development via separate funding, to go live in 2016), in combination with regionally available resources (distributed classroom activities kits) and remotely accessible training opportunities, modern science and technology learning opportunities will be brought to under-served rural classrooms in Alaska. The purpose of the Life History Transmitter (LHX tag) is to determine survival, causes and locations of mortality of host animals. In female hosts, LHX tags also determine the age at birth of their first pup and the number of pups born over their life. Oceans comprise the majority of the Earth's biosphere, and marine ecosystems are faced with potentially dramatic changes driven by natural and human factors, including use of natural resources and climate change. Many linkages between causes of changes, and effects in complex marine ecosystems, specially those involving top level consumers as well as their predators and prey, remain poorly understood, largely due to a lack of feasible ways to observe many marine species that spend most of their life at sea or under water. To overcome this difficulty, a new monitoring device was developed under previous IDBR funding that enables the collection of predation, survival and female reproductive data by a single instrument, no matter where the host might move to, feed, breed, and die. Building on the success of this new telemetry device that provided the first direct at-sea determination of predation rates on a large marine predator from satellite-linked transmissions initiated only after the death of the host, this project will improve the capabilities and enable the production of the Life History Transmitter, for collaborative studies on many top level species of interest and concern. This will enable researchers from a broad community of potential users to conceive and apply new experimental designs to provide a major surge in our understanding of marine ecosystems, food chain linkages, as well as consumer driven and resource driven effects within the many unresolved knowledge gaps.