Mobilizing Acoustic Telemetry Data to Inform Biodiversity Conservation

Acoustic telemetry is an increasingly common method for obtaining information on animal movement in aquatic environments and has great potential for supporting biodiversity monitoring frameworks. Acoustic telemetry systems involve transmitters that are attached to or are implanted in animals and receivers (hydrophones) that listen for and decode transmitted signals. The approach is particularly valuable for the many aquatic species that rarely or never spend time at the surface, where they can be tracked using satellite telemetry, or that are too small to carry satellite tags. Regional networks of acoustic telemetry researchers along coastlines and in rivers and estuaries have emerged to coordinate exchange of data and allow for tagged animals to be tracked from local to regional and continental scales. For example, the Atlantic Cooperative Telemetry Network (ACT) brings together >186 researchers from Maine to North Carolina, United States of America, who use acoustic telemetry as a key tool to study movements of >75 species. With >1,030 actively deployed receiver stations in the ACT Network and many more in neighboring networks, tagged animals can be tracked throughout the Atlantic coast of North America. Goals of individual studies conducted by network researchers are diverse, from documenting migration behaviors to understanding connectivity and phenology. ACT Network data are already used in a range of management and conservation applications including fisheries stock assessment, spatial management and planning, protected species monitoring and avoidance, beach safety programs, and fish passage assessment. However, there remains a critical need to develop standardized workflows to aggregate and convert movement data derived from acoustic telemetry into Essential Biodiversity Variables. Additional effort is needed to develop metrics that integrate acoustic telemetry data with other types of movement data. Nevertheless, the community of acoustic telemetry users has made substantial progress on data standardization and development of pipelines that can support the integration of acoustic telemetry data into EBVs.