ADCP-equipped underwater glider as a distributed biological sensing tool

Mid-trophic level animals, such as zooplankton and fish, are keystone organisms in the marine ecosystem and play a critical role in the economy and our food supply chain. However, our understanding of these animals, particularly those in the pelagic zones, is severely limited, due to the lack of tools that cab . This gap of knowledge has greatly impeded our ability in making informed policy decisions to support sustainable resource management. The root cause of this problem is the lack of tools that can collect information about these animals at large temporal and spatial scales comparable to other physical, chemical, and lower-trophic biological (e.g., chlorophyll) oceanographic variables.

Gliders have provided unparalleled mobile, persistent access to deep, remote ocean environments at a fraction of the cost of a research vessel. Taking advantage of this unique capability, in this project we aim to develop sampling strategies and data analysis methodologies to enable distributed long-term observation of mid-trophic marine organisms using Seagliders equipped with acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs).

Funding agency: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research FY2020 grants