Accelerometry research conducted by the Ocean Tracking Network (OTN) has led to significant advancements in biologging tag design—namely the innovation of smaller, cheaper, high-resolution tags to identify fine-scale animal movements and behaviour of study species.

Within OTN, these tags have been used in a suite of studies that first successfully showed the relationship between fish acceleration and changing body size, with the potential to estimate fish growth rates in the wild. Studies expanded to examine movement ecology in a range of predators, including grey seals, Pacific halibut and North Sea flapper skate.

A large-scale study involving researchers across the Atlantic region used accelerometer tags to validate at-sea time budgets (the amount of time an animal spends on various activities while at sea such as resting, foraging or travelling) and prey-capture (feeding/snatching/chewing movements of the jaw) events in grey seals (OTN project 4.7). In collaboration with the International Pacific Halibut Commission, accelerometer tags deployed on halibut in Alaska determined their activity levels in summer months, and predicted habitat use and the importance of the area for adult halibut. Accelerometer tags were also used to assess the habitat of endangered flapper skates in a collaboration with the Scottish Government, with the aim to deliver the scientific-based information required for the evaluation and renewal of a marine protected area (MPA) in Scotland.

Maritime bioLoggers—an OTN spin-off

Two former OTN students created a spin-off company, Maritime bioLoggers, which has emerged as a leader in Canadian biologging technology development.