TOPP Albatrosses 2002-06

Scott Shaffer, Michelle Kappes, Bill Henry, Yann Tremblay, Melinda Conners, Dan Costa, and the TOPP program

Laysan (Phoebastria immutabilis) and black-footed (P. nigripes) albatrosses were studied using Microwave Pico-100 and Wildlife Computers SPOT 4 satellite transmitters. Birds were studied at Tern Island, French Frigate Shoals, Northwest Hawaiian Islands (23.872 N, 166.272 W) from December 2002 to March 2009. The primary tracking period covers the incubation and chick-brooding phases during each year. In nearly all cases, albatrosses were equipped with a tag for a single trip to sea. Trip durations range from 1-32 days in duration and some albatrosses traveled over 15,000 km in a single trip.

The purpose of this research was to examine:
1) albatross distribution during breeding and post breeding phases,
2) characterize oceanic habitat of albatross habitat,
3) how both albatross species partition oceanic habitats,
4) commonalities in the distribution or physical features of their environment,
5) overlap and possible interaction with other TOPP organisms (e.g., elephant seals, tuna, sea turtles), and
6) highlight conservation priorities such as overlap with fisheries

ARGOS points used for the dataset extent, inferred track and population of upstream OBIS archive were filtered according to McConnell et al. (1992), with a maximum velocity of 100 km/hr, or 27.8 m/s using the vmask function in the argosfilter R package (Frietas et al. 2008). This is the recommended method by the TOPP Seabird Research Team and others from the Global Procellariiform Tracking Workshop Report (Taylor 2004).
References:
Freitas, C., C. Lydersen, M.A. Fedak, and K.M. Kovacs. 2008. A simple new algorithm to filter marine mammal Argos locations. Marine Mammal Science, 24(2): 315-325.
McConnell, B.J., C. Chambers and M.A. Fedak. 1992. Foraging ecology of southern elephant seals in relation to the bathymetry and productivity of the Southern Ocean. Antarctic Science, 4(04): 393-398.
Taylor, F. 2004. Methods. In: J.P. Croxall (ed.). Global Procellariiform Tracking Workshop Report. BirdLife International, Cambridge, p. 3.

Overview

ARGOS Latitude 1 and Longitude 1 are used for the coordinates in the SEAMAP mas.

Attributes described below represent those in the original dataset provided by the provider.
Only minimum required attributes are visible and downloadable online. Other attributes may be obtained upon provider's permission.

Attributes in dataset

Attribute (table column)	Description
row_index
ptt	Argos PTT ID #
obs_date	Date (GMT)
obs_time	Time (GMT)
loc_qual	ARGOS location quality. 1 = ARGOS Quality 3; 2 = ARGOS Quality 2; 3 = ARGOS Quality 1; 4 = ARGOS Quality 0; 5 = ARGOS Quality A; 6 = ARGOS Quality B; 7 = ARGOS Quality Z
latitude	ARGOS Latitude 1
longitude	ARGOS Longitude 1
lat2	ARGOS Latitude 2
long2	ARGOS Longitude 2
season	Season (two-year period encompassing the albatross breeding season) that tracking was conducted
site	Breeding colony where instruments were deployed (TERN = Tern Island, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands; GUAD = Guadalupe Island, Mexico)
spp	Species tracked (BFAL = Black-footed Albatross; LAAL = Laysan Albatross)
sp_tsn	Taxonomic Serial Number by Integrated Taxonomic Information System
status	Status of breeding bird (INC = Incubation; BROOD = Brooding; REAR = Rearing) when instrument was deployed (the status may have changed before retrieval)
series	USFWS metal band # (unique individual identifier)
dtimehrs	Metric from the filter
distancekm	Metric from the filter
angledeg	Metric from the filter
speedmps	Metric from the filter
speedmps
filter_keep	Flag indicating if the point is good or bad based on the filter applied.
oid	Unique ID number (generated by SEAMAP)