The Current State of Cephalopod Science and Perspectives on the Most Critical Challenges Ahead From Three Early-Career Researchers

International audienceHere, three researchers who have recently embarked on careers in cephalopod biology discuss the current state of the field and offer their hopes for the future. Seven major topics are explored genetics, aquaculture, climate change, welfare, behavior, cognition, and neurobiology. Recent developments in each of these fields are reviewed and the potential of emerging technologies to address specific gaps in knowledge about cephalopods are discussed. Throughout, the authors highlight specific challenges that merit particular focus in the near-term. This review and prospectus is also intended to suggest some concrete near-term goals to cephalopod researchers and inspire those working outside the field to consider the revelatory potential of these remarkable creatures

Exploring Animal Behavior Through Sound: Volume 1

This open-access book empowers its readers to explore the acoustic world of animals. By listening to the sounds of nature, we can study animal behavior, distribution, and demographics; their habitat characteristics and needs; and the effects of noise. Sound recording is an efficient and affordable tool, independent of daylight and weather; and recorders may be left in place for many months at a time, continuously collecting data on animals and their environment. This book builds the skills and knowledge necessary to collect and interpret acoustic data from terrestrial and marine environments. Beginning with a history of sound recording, the chapters provide an overview of off-the-shelf recording equipment and analysis tools (including automated signal detectors and statistical methods); audiometric methods; acoustic terminology, quantities, and units; sound propagation in air and under water; soundscapes of terrestrial and marine habitats; animal acoustic and vibrational communication; echolocation; and the effects of noise. This book will be useful to students and researchers of animal ecology who wish to add acoustics to their toolbox, as well as to environmental managers in industry and government

Exploring Animal Behavior Through Sound: Volume 1

This open-access book empowers its readers to explore the acoustic world of animals. By listening to the sounds of nature, we can study animal behavior, distribution, and demographics; their habitat characteristics and needs; and the effects of noise. Sound recording is an efficient and affordable tool, independent of daylight and weather; and recorders may be left in place for many months at a time, continuously collecting data on animals and their environment. This book builds the skills and knowledge necessary to collect and interpret acoustic data from terrestrial and marine environments. Beginning with a history of sound recording, the chapters provide an overview of off-the-shelf recording equipment and analysis tools (including automated signal detectors and statistical methods); audiometric methods; acoustic terminology, quantities, and units; sound propagation in air and under water; soundscapes of terrestrial and marine habitats; animal acoustic and vibrational communication; echolocation; and the effects of noise. This book will be useful to students and researchers of animal ecology who wish to add acoustics to their toolbox, as well as to environmental managers in industry and government

Autonomous Sailboat Navigation

The purpose of this study was to investigate novel methods on an unmanned sailing boat, which enables it to sail fully autonomously, navigate safely, and perform long-term missions. The author used robotic sailing boat prototypes for field experiments as his main research method. Two robotic sailing boats have been developed especially for this purpose. A compact software model of a sailing boat's behaviour allowed for further evaluation of routing and obstacle avoidance methods in a computer simulation. The results of real-world experiments and computer simulations are validated against each other. It has been demonstrated that autonomous boat sailing is possible by the effective combination of appropriate new and novel techniques that will allow autonomous sailing boats to create appropriate routes, to react properly on obstacles and to carry out sailing manoeuvres by controlling rudder and sails. Novel methods for weather routing, collision avoidance, and autonomous manoeuvre execution have been proposed and successfully demonstrated. The combination of these techniques in a layered hybrid subsumption architecture make robotic sailing boats a promising tool for many applications, especially in ocean observation

Pelagic deep-sea metazoan biodiversity and ecology revealed by environmental DNA analysis in combination with other censuses

The deep sea (> 200 m) not only represents the largest habitat on earth, but also has the highest faunal biomasses and greatest number of individual organisms. While the deep sea provides humans with substantial services, its ecosystems remain poorly studied. Logistical and technical challenges to sample deep-sea ecosystems as well as organisms’ avoidance behavior to underwater gear stress the need for alternative techniques. In this thesis, I focused on a relatively novel tool in deep-sea biology; environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis. Environmental DNA is genetic material that organisms shed into their environment. This eDNA can be assigned to a specific taxon and provides information on species presence, diversity and distribution without the need to encounter or capture the source animal. The first objective of this thesis was to develop a pipeline to collect diversity and distribution data on deep-sea cephalopods with eDNA analysis from water and sediment samples. The second objective was to establish biodiversity baselines and distribution patterns of key organisms in the deep sea and to put these patterns into an ecological context. The third objective of this thesis was to identify cephalopod and fish taxa that potentially contribute to the vertical transport of carbon. This thesis showed that eDNA can be used successfully in the assessment and monitoring of deep-sea pelagic metazoans in hotspots of diversity and climate change. Especially when eDNA analysis is analyzed in different kinds of samples and used in combination with other techniques, it can help to answer ecological questions and ultimately contribute to aid in conservation of deep-sea habitats