AniBOS builds and broadens the use of animal derived ocean observations through enhanced visibility, cross-network collaboration and communication.

AniBOS (Animal Borne Ocean Sensors), an emerging network of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), provides freely available oceanographic measurements across the hard-to-reach world’s polar and tropical oceans collected through bio-logging, the deployment of sensors on marine animals. These data complement conventional approaches by providing both physical and ecological data in ocean regions directly at the scale and resolution at which animals move. AniBOS will integrate animal collected data within GOOS to improve our ability to observe and predict global climate processes and animal behaviour for societal benefit.

The AniBOS network is unique because it delivers across all three of GOOS’ critical themes: climate, marine ecosystem health and operational services.

The network has three primary objectives:

  1. Collect and disseminate high quality and high frequency observations of physical and biogeochemical oceanographic data in a standardised manner that is consistent across sampling platforms.
  2. Provide in situ habitat data at the scale and resolution at which animals operate in the ocean to understand how they respond to ocean variability and change.
  3. Provide a foundation for understanding how animals respond to a dynamic, changing ocean, in particular by integration with existing and new and emerging GOOS networks.

A goal of the network is to provide a cost-effective and complementary capability to the GOOS to monitor essential ocean variables (EOV), essential climate variables (ECV), and essential biodiversity variables (EBV), by providing inputs to estimates of global ocean indicators, and contributing to a global quantification of the seasonal and interannual variability of the upper ocean state.

AniBOS will greatly enhance observations of temperature and salinity (TS) in the upper ocean which are urgently needed to sustain improved understanding of climate variability and ocean variability. The animal-borne observations also contribute unique TS observations that can be integrated with other observations, such as those from Argo, ships, and gliders, to inform a range of operational oceanographic applications. Many other oceanographic measurements are being made using animal-borne sensors, such as chlorophyll fluorescence and dissolved oxygen, with additional sensors in development (see Harcourt et al. 2019 figure below).

Schematic illustrating the many parameters that can be measured by animal-borne ocean packages, using archival, acoustic, or satellite telemetry. The environmental, physiological, and ecological data collected by the illustrative marine animals (penguin, seabird, fish, seal) may be measured in multiple ways and stored or transmitted or both. From Harcourt et al. 2019

Animal-borne observations can be made from a large array of taxa (see March et al. 2019 figure below) and provide data from regions that are currently poorly covered by traditional observing platforms such as continental shelves and ice-covered regions, filling large observational gaps that presently exist in the global observing network. They will also provide crucial information for ocean state estimation, and when integrated with other elements of the climate observing system, will greatly enhance studies of climate variability and deliver data to inform climate prediction estimates at global and regional scales.

Density maps of species subject to telemetry by taxonomic group. (a) Tuna and billfishes, (b) sharks and rays, (c) pinnipeds, (d) cetaceans, (e) penguins, (f) flying seabirds, (g) turtles and (h) sirenians. (March et al. 2019).

Importantly, animal-borne sensors also provide a wealth of data on animal movements and behaviour that directly link environmental state and animal performance (see Harcourt et al. 2019 figure above). This knowledge is essential to plan and develop evidence-based policy that is beneficial to protecting the animals and their habitats from increasing human activities through an understanding of their biology and spatial ecology.

A growing number of ecological studies and management applications are made possible by the use of bio-logging and animal-borne instruments. However, there is still a gap in the integration of such sensors with global ocean observing systems. Formal recognition of the animal borne ocean sensors network within the GOOS Observations Coordination Group (OCG) improves our ability to observe and understand the oceans and animals that live in them, thus contributing to increased understanding of global climate processes for societal benefit.