Technological innovation in archival tags used in seabird research

Abstract

The first archival tags were used on seabirds in the 1960s. Since that time, when recording systems were primitive, various technological advances, culminating in solid state devices, have provided the seabird research community with extraordinarily sophisticated and powerful tags. This work documents the progress and development of archival tags used on seabirds. Major advances and the insights that these have provided into seabird behavioural ecology are highlighted, followed by an examination of the current limitations to our ability to study seabird ecology and speculation on what the future will bring to this exciting and dynamic field. © Inter-Research 2012.