IDBR: Development of a Miniaturized Implantable Satellite Transmitter to Monitor Survival, Predation and Reproduction in Marine Endotherms

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驱动的深刻变化，包括资源开采和气候变化。许多上层营养的海洋联系仍未解决，这主要是由于缺乏收集往往无法直接观察的物种的生活史和生命率数据的可行方法。基本数据包括特定年龄的存活率以及捕食等死亡原因。这些数据对于评估自上而下(消费者驱动)和自下而上(资源驱动)效应的流行情况至关重要，对于我们理解受挑战的海洋生态系统至关重要，但还不能通过单一的实验方法以类似的时间和空间分辨率收集这些数据。在成功的概念验证开发的基础上，将开发一种微型植入式终身卫星监测仪，以提供关于海洋恒温动物的死亡率、捕食率和生命比率的高分辨率数据，该概念验证开发首次在海上直接确定了海洋哺乳动物死后卫星传输对捕食的影响。新的生命历史传送器被设计成植入小到海獭的动物体内，并将记录宿主生命中的重要数据。关于生殖事件和死亡原因的数据将在死后通过卫星传输。新仪器将为研究多物种上层营养海洋组合中的捕食者-猎物关系提供创新的实验范式，并将导致我们对复杂的海洋生态系统、上层营养联系以及消费者和资源驱动效应的普遍性的理解。这一联合开发将由俄勒冈州立大学的羽足生态学应用研究实验室、俄勒冈州立大学机械、工业和制造工程学院以及领先的海洋脊椎动物遥测设备制造商野生动物计算机公司(Redmond，WA)领导。计算力学和应用设计实验室的本科生和研究生将参与技术创新的多学科综合应用，以促进变革性生物研究。工科学生将设计一种可编程的压力循环潜水模拟器，以及使用先进复合材料为植入式设备设计天线盖。现有的小型化卫星发射器组件将由Wildlife计算机进行修改，以使目标尺寸减少到概念验证设备的50%(按体积计算)。鳍脚生态实验室将开发计算算法，以便通过设备的操作软件确定生殖事件和捕食行为。通过专门的教育和推广方案，技术创新和生物研究之间的联系将被带给广大公众受众，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K-12岁的学童。推广一揽子活动将利用俄勒冈州哈特菲尔德海洋科学游客中心的一个专门建造的展览，该中心是一个由海洋赠款资助的海洋教育场所，服务于15万多名参观者和12000名K-12学生，以及一个专门的项目网站(www.sealtag.org)，并将提供符合国家科学教育标准和海洋扫盲原则的专门制定的课程内容。课程将通过项目网站和更广泛的海洋赠款受众提供。开发完成后，新仪器将通过Wildlife Computers(www.Wildlifecomputers.com)进行商业化销售。

Oceans comprise the majority of the Earth's biosphere, and marine ecosystems are faced with profound changes driven by natural and anthropogenic factors, including resource extraction and climate change. Many upper trophic marine linkages remain unresolved, largely due to a lack of viable approaches for collecting life history and vital rate data from species that are often impossibly to observe directly. Essential data include age specific survival as well as causes of mortality such as predation. Such data are crucial to assess prevalence of top down (consumer driven) and bottom up (resource driven) effects, essential to our understanding of challenged marine ecosystems, but cannot yet be collected by single experimental approaches at comparable temporal and spatial resolutions.Building on a successful proof-of-concept development that provided the first direct at-sea determination of predation on a marine mammal from post-mortem satellite transmissions, a miniaturized implantable life-long satellite monitor will be developed to provide high resolution data on mortality, predation and vital rates in marine homeotherms. The new Life History Transmitters are designed to be implanted into animals as small as sea otters, and will record vital data through the life of the host. Data on reproductive events and causes of mortality will be transmitted post-mortem via satellite. The new instrument will allow innovative experimental paradigms for the study of predator-prey relationships in multi-species upper trophic marine assemblages, and should lead to a surge in our understanding of complex marine ecosystems, upper trophic linkages and prevalence of consumer- and resource-driven effects.This joint development will be led by Oregon State University's Pinniped Ecology Applied Research Laboratory, with Oregon State's School of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering and Wildlife Computers Inc. (Redmond, WA), a leading manufacturer of marine vertebrate telemetry devices. Undergraduate and graduate students in the Computational Mechanics and Applied Design Laboratory will participate in the multi-disciplinary integrative application of technological innovation to promoting transformative biological research. The engineering students will design a programmable pressure-cycling dive simulator, as well as an antenna cover for the implantable device from advanced composite materials. Existing miniaturized satellite transmitter components will be modified by Wildlife Computers to allow the targeted size reduction to 50% (by volume) of the proof-of-concept device. Computational algorithms will be developed by the Pinniped Ecology Laboratory to allow determination of reproductive events and predation by the operational software of the devices.Through a dedicated education and outreach package, the 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 K-12 school children. The outreach package will utilize a purpose built exhibit at the Hatfield Marine Science Visitor Center in Oregon, a Sea Grant supported marine education venue serving over 150,000 visitors and 12,000 K-12 students, as well as a project dedicated web site (www.sealtag.org), and will provide specifically developed curriculum elements that meet National Science Education Standards and Ocean Literacy Principles. Curricula will be made available via the project website and to the wider Sea Grant audiences. After completion of the development, the new instrument will be made commercially available through Wildlife Computers (www.wildlifecomputers.com).