Japanese researchers are pushing for what they call an "Internet of Animals" after seeing the wealth of information that can be gathered through sensors placed on creatures.
The Kobe University-led team's study on the global use of biologging was published in the journal Water Biology and Security, and it shared its results in a news release.
The scientists think that placing devices on animals can complete the picture of humanity's effect on marine life. That extends to our activities like fishing, construction, mining, and boating. Many of those activities come with consequent pollution and effects on the ecosystem, and better understanding their impact can influence policy.
"There is a wealth of oceanographic data from research vessels, drifting buoys, and satellites," explained Kobe University animal ecologist Iwata Takashi. "But due to technological and economic constraints, there are many observation gaps and some areas are inaccessible to humans."
Biologging can also reveal the specific impacts on individual animals. While past uses of biologging honed in on animals' behavior and demographics, these scientists believe it can help track our environmental impact.
As the news release puts it: "If we want to know about the effects humans have on animals, who better to ask than the animals themselves?"
Iwata noted that these devices are now consistently under 3% of animals' body weight and that "researchers keep developing smaller and smaller devices." That reduces the invasiveness.
The team found that while the current state of biologging is limited by a lack of global collaboration, it can play a major role in the future.
"While biologging alone is insufficient, it can fill in the gaps in existing knowledge," declared Iwata. "It provides a new type of data that differs from the wide-area environmental information obtained from earth observation satellites and other sources."
Biologging is just one of many innovative approaches researchers are employing to better track animals and influence policy. Dogs have become an ally in many efforts in sniffing out things like whale scat that can provide scientists a noninvasive path to monitoring animals.
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Definitely 👍 Environmental DNA is another promising avenue that is noninvasive and can allow conservationists to learn more about vulnerable animals and track their movements. Researchers have used it in efforts to help save the Swinhoe's softshell turtles from extinction.
Conventional methods to monitor ocean conditions like satellites will remain a foundation of any efforts to better understand our environmental impact. Iwata and his team believe that biologging can be an even more powerful tool in the future.
That's where the "Internet of Animals" comes in. To make it happen, researchers from all around the globe would have to standardize their data collection, share their findings, and collaborate. The resulting wealth of information could "return the power of data to society," Iwata said.
"I hope to not only recruit more researchers to this field but also to so open up new angles that we haven't yet envisioned," Iwata revealed.
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