https://www.biographic.com/teeny-tiny-trackers-take-to-the-water/
"For biologists around the world, the invention of small, portable acoustic,
radio, and satellite tracking tags has revolutionized their understanding of
where animals go and how they live. But limitations in the technology mean
they’ve only studied a fraction of underwater life, says Robert Lennox, a
biologist at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia.
Consider, for instance, the delta smelt (
Hypomesus transpacificus). These
slender, silvery fish—which average just 6.5-centimeters (2.5-inches) long—are
found only in California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. For millennia, these
fish darted in droves through the delta’s murky water and effectively supported
the watershed’s entire food web. Over the past century, however, pollution,
invasive species, and excessive water pumping have destabilized the ecosystem,
pushing the diminutive delta smelt toward extinction.
To help the fish recover, scientists want to restore the delta and manage how
water flows across the land, as well as boost the population with
hatchery-raised smelt. But to concentrate their efforts on what will benefit
the fish the most, scientists still need to answer some pretty fundamental
questions about how smelt use their delta.
“We need to know things like, Where are they going? How do they get there? We
don’t even know where they spawn,” says Eric Chapman, a fish biologist at ICF,
a global applied research firm and technology provider, who is working with the
University of California Davis to track delta smelt.
Unfortunately, existing tracking tags weigh heavily—literally—on the tiny fish.
In 2016, when researchers tested implanting smelt with the smallest acoustic
transmitter then available, the sensitive fish wouldn’t always survive the
process, Chapman says.
Now, however, breakthroughs in tagging technology are opening a window into the
lives of smelt and other small swimmers—a shift some scientists say could
transform our understanding of the underwater world’s more minute creatures."
Via
Reasons to be Cheerful:
<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/what-were-reading-homelessness-declining-los-angeles/>
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
