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TOPP Albatrosses 2002-06


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Availability: Creative Commons License This dataset is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Notes: Only data aggregated per 1-degree cell are available through OBIS. The non-aggregated data are available through the OBIS-SEAMAP Portal

Description
Data of tracking from albatrosses at Tern Island from December 2002 to March 2009. more

Dataset credit: Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP program) (http://www.topp.org/) Laysan (Phoebastria immutabilis) and black-footed (P. nigripes) albatrosses were studied using Microwave Pico-100 and Wildlife Computers SPOT 4 satellite transmitters. Birds were studied at Tern Island, French Frigate Shoals, Northwest Hawaiian Islands (23.872 N, 166.272 W) from December 2002 to March 2009. The primary tracking period covers the incubation and chick-brooding phases during each year. In nearly all cases, albatrosses were equipped with a tag for a single trip to sea. Trip durations range from 1-32 days in duration and some albatrosses traveled over 15,000 km in a single trip. The purpose of this research was to examine:

  1. albatross distribution during breeding and post breeding phases,
  2. characterize oceanic habitat of albatross habitat,
  3. how both albatross species partition oceanic habitats,
  4. commonalities in the distribution or physical features of their environment,
  5. overlap and possible interaction with other TOPP organisms (e.g., elephant seals, tuna, sea turtles), and
  6. highlight conservation priorities such as overlap with fisheries.
ARGOS points used for the dataset extent, inferred track and population of upstream OBIS archive were filtered according to McConnell et al. (1992), with a maximum velocity of 100 km/hr, or 27.8 m/s using the vmask function in the argosfilter R package (Frietas et al. 2008). This is the recommended method by the TOPP Seabird Research Team and others from the Global Procellariiform Tracking Workshop Report (Taylor 2004).
  • Freitas, C., C. Lydersen, M.A. Fedak, and K.M. Kovacs. 2008. A simple new algorithm to filter marine mammal Argos locations. Marine Mammal Science, 24(2): 315-325.
  • McConnell, B.J., C. Chambers and M.A. Fedak. 1992. Foraging ecology of southern elephant seals in relation to the bathymetry and productivity of the Southern Ocean. Antarctic Science, 4(04): 393-398.
  • Taylor, F. 2004. Methods. In: J.P. Croxall (ed.). Global Procellariiform Tracking Workshop Report. BirdLife International, Cambridge, p. 3.

Scope
Themes:
Biology > Birds
Keywords:
Marine/Coastal, I, North Pacific, Aves

Geographical coverage
I, North Pacific [Marine Regions]

Temporal coverage
15 December 2002 - 9 March 2006

Taxonomic coverage
Aves [WoRMS]

Contributors
San Jose State University, moredata owner
University of California, Santa Cruz; Costa Lab, more

Related datasets
Published in:
OBIS-SEAMAP: Spatial Ecological Analysis of Megavertebrate Populations, more

Dataset status: Completed
Data type: Data
Data origin: Research
Metadatarecord created: 2012-11-27
Information last updated: 2012-11-27
All data in the Integrated Marine Information System (IMIS) is subject to the VLIZ privacy policy