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

阿拉斯加海洋生物中心（阿拉斯加州苏厄德）获得了一个奖项，为暖体海洋动物开发一种小型化、植入式、终身生命率监测器。 本研究将提供一名博士后研究员和一名技术研究助理参与科学技术的多学科融合，并应用技术创新促进创新生物学研究的机会。通过一个定制的教育和推广一揽子计划，将向广大公众介绍技术创新与生物研究之间的发展努力和联系，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。该推广包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（正在通过单独供资开发，将于2016年启用），结合区域现有资源（分发的课堂活动包）和远程访问的培训机会，将为阿拉斯加服务不足的农村教室提供现代科学和技术学习机会。生活史变送器（LHX标签）的目的是确定宿主动物的存活率、死亡原因和死亡位置。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自然和人为因素，包括自然资源的使用和气候变化所驱动的潜在巨大变化。变化的原因与复杂海洋生态系统的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，主要是由于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都在海上或水下度过。为了克服这一困难，在以前的IDBR资助下开发了一种新的监测设备，该设备可以通过一种仪器收集捕食，生存和雌性生殖数据，无论宿主可能移动到哪里，喂养，繁殖和死亡。这一新的遥测装置成功地提供了第一个直接在海上确定捕食率的大型海洋捕食者从卫星连接的传输后，主机的死亡启动，该项目将提高能力，使生产的生活史发射机，对许多顶级物种的利益和关注的合作研究。这将使来自广泛的潜在用户社区的研究人员能够构思和应用新的实验设计，以在许多未解决的知识差距内，大大提高我们对海洋生态系统、食物链联系以及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.