Meso-pelagic animal behavior study by animal borne camera and 3-D loggers

我们开发了一种新的动物数据记录仪系统，用于估计猎物分布和磁场，加速度，游泳速度和深度记录仪，用于重建动物潜水路径。我们将这两种系统应用于南极威德尔海豹，研究了海豹如何选择与猎物分布有关的觅食深度和觅食地点，以及它们如何管理自己的觅食行为，以最大限度地提高其觅食效率与潜水极限的关系。数据显示，猎物类动物只出现在它们的潜水剖面的底部，它们直接接近潜水底部并返回呼吸孔，而它们则四处移动，这表明它们在底部觅食的时间最长，因为那里分布着更多的猎物。我们还发现了新的动物在南极大陆架冰区下的威德尔海豹携带的相机系统。威德尔海豹在150m深的陆架冰下觅食，并在陆架冰下发现了大量的悬浮底栖动物，这是以前从未报道过的动物区系。获得这些结果，我们开发了进一步的小型化相机记录器系统企鹅部署。我们首先在南极洲的阿德利企鹅和帽带企鹅身上使用了这个相机系统，并成功地可视化了水下的群体觅食行为。

We developed a new system of animal borne data loggers, camera loggers for estimation of prey distribution and magnetic fields, accelerations, swim speed and depth logger for reconstruction of animal dive paths. We used both systems for Weddell seals in Antarctica to investigate how seals selected foraging depth and foraging sites in relation to prey distribution and how they managed their foraging behavior to maximize their foraging efficiency in relation to dive limit Data showed that prey like animals appeared only bottom of their dive profiles and they straightly approached their dive bottom and returned to the breathing holes whereas they moved around rather randomly indicating that they maximized their foraging time at bottom where more prey are distributed. We also found new fauna beneath the Antarctic shelf ice zone by the Weddell seal borne camera systems. Weddell seals foraged beneath the shelf ice zone of 150m depth and much of suspended benthos under surface of shelf ice was found. This fauna has never reported before. Obtaining these results, we developed further miniaturized camera logger system for penguin deployments. We first used this camera system for Adelie and chinstrap penguins in Antarctica and succeeded to visualize the group foraging behavior under water.