The Ocean Tracking Network – Adding Marine Animal Movements to the Global Ocean Observing System

Abstract

Researchers in the Ocean Tracking Network (OTN) are pressing for standards and protocols to allow universal storage and sharing of a broad spectrum of biological and physical oceanographic information. Society needs information to manage marine resources, and once it invests in some standardized approaches industry will also invest knowing that the new products they develop will be compatible with a global system. We summarize the planned OTN and some recurring themes from recent tracking and telemetry workshops around the world. We include the ways that industry believes it can deliver a picture of the complex interactions of biology and physic that are the world's oceans. Where animals go, what conditions they experience, how they interact and how individual's behaviours change on time-scales relevant to climate change is information that scientists and managers need in order to protect and restore ocean productivity.