Understanding the impact of aquatic thermal structure on the performance of fish telemetry technology

鱼类遥测技术是一种重要的新工具，通过提供有关行为、生境利用和种群动态的信息，正在被用于推进和改善湖泊和沿海地区鱼类的养护和管理。这项技术在五大湖广泛应用的一个突出例子是GLATOS阵列，它将190多名加拿大和美国的调查人员与来自50多个项目的汇总数据库连接起来，记录了39个物种的8000多种鱼类，并进行了1.5亿次标签检测。工业合作伙伴InnovaSea Systems Canada Inc生产鱼类跟踪设备，以“Vemco”品牌销售。Vemco是声学遥测设备的主要全球品牌，其声誉的关键部分依赖于为其设备的典型检测范围的用户提供准确的指导。湖泊中的声速主要是温度的函数，因此五大湖的季节性热分层代表了所有水生系统中最强的声速梯度。这些声速梯度可以作用于折射声波（通过斯涅尔定律），导致声信号的更大发散，因此衰减更快。合作伙伴面临的问题是，他们缺乏关于湖泊强热分层如何影响探测范围的理论知识，因此无法指导其用户如何设计探测阵列。通过研究产生的知识将帮助合作伙伴进一步完善他们为用户如何设计和测试他们的油田阵列提供的关键指导，帮助用户了解他们的阵列的优点和缺点，并使合作伙伴能够帮助用户做出有助于加拿大经济的管理决策。

Fish telemetry is an important new tool that is being used to advance and improve conservation and management of fishes in lakes and coastal regions by providing information on behaviour, habitat use, and population dynamics. One prominent example of wide-spread use of this technology in the Great Lakes is the GLATOS array, which connects 190+ Canadian and American investigators with a pooled database from over 50+ projects, documenting 8000+ fish tagged across 39 species and with 150+ million tag detections. The industrial partner InnovaSea Systems Canada Inc manufacture fish tracking devices that are marketed under the brandname "Vemco". Vemco is a major world-wide brand of acoustic telemetry equipment, and a crucial part of their reputation relies on providing accurate guidance to their users of the typical detection range of their devices. The speed of sound in lakes is primarily a function of temperature, so the seasonal thermalstratification in the Great Lakes represents the strongest speed of sound gradients in any aquatic system. These speed of sound gradients can act the refract sound waves (via Snell's law), leading to greater divergence of acoustic signal, and hence more rapid attenuation. The partner is faced with a problem in that they lack theoretical knowledge of how strong thermal stratification in lakes can influence detection range, and hence are unable to give guidance on how their users should design detection arrays. Knowledge generated through the research will assist the partner in further refining the critical guidance they give for how users design and test their field arrays, help users understand their arrays strengths and weaknesses, and enable the partner to help users make management decisions that help the Canadian economy.