Cormorant Oceanography Project: Biologging Data from Pelagic Cormorants (Urile pelagicus), Middleton Island, AK, 2020

Oceanographic sampling of the coastal ocean is often sparse in space and time and in situ observations are needed to understand the complex physical processes in this zone.

This dataset is provided by the Cormorant Oceanography Project (https://www.osudashcams.com/), an interdisciplinary collaboration between oceanographers and seabird ecologists based at Oregon State University, and in partnership with collaborators globally. We are advancing biologging tag technologies for use with cormorant species to measure in situ oceanographic conditions. This also offers a unique opportunity to study the distribution and behaviors of cormorants relative to environmental conditions along their daily foraging paths.

Our biologging tags include combinations of fast-response sensors to measure water temperature, conductivity, and pressure. Each tag contains an inertial measurement unit (IMU) to monitor acceleration and orientation. A GPS unit, triggered when a bird surfaces, provides locations for georeferencing measurements. The sensors collect large volumes of data that are transmitted and retrieved using two-way cellular communications.

This dataset consists of GPS tracks and dive profiles from Pelagic Cormorants (Urile pelagicus) tagged on Middleton Island, Alaska, during the 2020 breeding season. Cormorants were fitted with GPS-GSM tags integrated with temperature, depth and IMU sensors and were tracked for approximately a two-week period during the breeding season, after which tags were removed. A sub-set of individuals were tracked throughout the breeding and post-breeding migration period.

近岸海域的海洋学采样往往在空间与时间维度上存在稀疏性，因此需通过原位观测来解析该区域内复杂的物理过程。

本数据集由鸬鹚海洋学项目（Cormorant Oceanography Project，https://www.osudashcams.com/）提供，该项目由俄勒冈州立大学的海洋学家与海鸟生态学家开展跨学科合作，并与全球合作者联合推进。我们正在优化适用于鸬鹚物种的生物记录标签技术，以原位测量海洋环境参数；同时这也为研究鸬鹚在每日觅食路径上的分布、行为与环境条件的相关性提供了独特契机。

本项目研发的生物记录标签集成了多组快速响应传感器，可测量水温、电导率与压强。每枚标签均搭载惯性测量单元（inertial measurement unit，IMU），用于监测加速度与姿态；当鸟类浮出水面时触发的GPS模块可提供定位信息，用于测量数据的地理配准。上述传感器可采集海量数据，并通过双向蜂窝通信完成数据的传输与取回。

本数据集包含2020年繁殖季期间，在阿拉斯加州米德尔顿岛佩戴生物记录标签的远洋鸬鹚（Urile pelagicus）的GPS轨迹与潜水剖面数据。研究人员为鸬鹚佩戴了集成温度、深度与IMU传感器的GPS-GSM标签，并在繁殖季期间对其进行了约两周的追踪，随后取下标签。其中部分个体的追踪周期覆盖了繁殖期及繁殖后迁徙全程。