Processing of acceleration and dive data on-board satellite relay tags to investigate diving and foraging behaviour in free-ranging marine predators

1. Biologging technologies are changing the way in which the marine environment is observed and monitored. However, because device retrieval is generally required to access the high resolution data they collect, use is generally restricted to those animals that predictably return to land. Data abstraction and transmission techniques aim to address this, although currently these are limited in scope and do not incorporate, for example, acceleration measurements which can quantify animal behaviours and movement patterns over fine-scales.
2. In this study, we present a new method for the collection, abstraction and transmission of accelerometer data from free-ranging marine predators via the Argos satellite system. We test run the technique on 20 juvenile southern elephant seals Mirounga leonina from the Kerguelen Islands during their first months at sea following weaning. Using retrieved archival data from nine individuals that returned to the colony, we compare and validate abstracte...