Will work for sardines: 20 years of animal-borne ocean observing by Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) Animal Tagging Facility

The world’s ocean stores ~90% of the excess heat generated by anthropogenic global warming, making sustained ocean observations essential for understanding physical, biological and climate processes. Here, we describe how the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) Animal Tagging Facility, in collaboration with national and international partners, has established a unique animal-borne ocean-observing system. Wide-ranging, deep-diving marine predators provide critical observations from remote and under-sampled regions, particularly the Australian Antarctic sector and tropical northern Australia, complementing traditional observing networks. Since 2004, IMOS Animal Tagging has deployed 1023 instrumented tags on southern elephant (n = 746) and Weddell seals (n = 125), Australian sea lions (n = 50), Australian (n = 8) and New Zealand fur seals (n = 24), and olive ridley (n = 24), green (n = 10) and flatback turtles (n = 16). These deployments have yielded more than 420,000 temperature–salinity–depth profiles spanning the Antarctic to the tropics. The resulting observations have advanced understanding of ocean structure, bathymetry, climate processes and the ecology of wide-ranging marine vertebrates, while providing valuable data to operational oceanography and climate research. Twenty years of sustained observations have demonstrated the importance of long-term, continuous animal-borne data streams as a core component of Australia’s IMOS.

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Journal
Marine and Freshwater Research
Published
2026-08-14
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1071/mf25263
Primary Topic
Marine animal studies overview
Type
article
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article

Will work for sardines: 20 years of animal-borne ocean observing by Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) Animal Tagging Facility

Clive R. McMahon, Fabien Roquet, Robert Harcourt, Ian D. Jonsen et al.
Marine and Freshwater Research
Marine animal studies overview
article

Will work for sardines: 20 years of animal-borne ocean observing by Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) Animal Tagging Facility

Clive R. McMahon, Fabien Roquet, Robert Harcourt, Ian D. Jonsen, Sophie Bestley, Sara Labrousse, Michele Thums, Rachel R. Holser, Dahlia Foo, Christopher C. Chapman, Natalia Ribeiro, Luciana C. Ferreira, Kimberly Goetz, Guy Williams, Mark A. Hindell, Isobel Lerpiniere, Mike Fedak, Baptiste Picard, Simon D. Goldsworthy, Jean-Benoit Charassin, Christophe Guinet, David Green
article en

Abstract

The world’s ocean stores ~90% of the excess heat generated by anthropogenic global warming, making sustained ocean observations essential for understanding physical, biological and climate processes. Here, we describe how the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) Animal Tagging Facility, in collaboration with national and international partners, has established a unique animal-borne ocean-observing system. Wide-ranging, deep-diving marine predators provide critical observations from remote and under-sampled regions, particularly the Australian Antarctic sector and tropical northern Australia, complementing traditional observing networks. Since 2004, IMOS Animal Tagging has deployed 1023 instrumented tags on southern elephant (n = 746) and Weddell seals (n = 125), Australian sea lions (n = 50), Australian (n = 8) and New Zealand fur seals (n = 24), and olive ridley (n = 24), green (n = 10) and flatback turtles (n = 16). These deployments have yielded more than 420,000 temperature–salinity–depth profiles spanning the Antarctic to the tropics. The resulting observations have advanced understanding of ocean structure, bathymetry, climate processes and the ecology of wide-ranging marine vertebrates, while providing valuable data to operational oceanography and climate research. Twenty years of sustained observations have demonstrated the importance of long-term, continuous animal-borne data streams as a core component of Australia’s IMOS.

Marine and Freshwater ResearchVol. 77(12)
NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (US), CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere (AU), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (US), Australian Institute of Marine Science (AU), Australian Antarctic Division (AU), Shenyang Institute of Automation (CN), University of St Andrews (GB), University of California, Santa Cruz (US), University of Canberra (AU), South Australian Research and Development Institute (AU), Sorbonne Université (FR), Centre d'Etudes Biologiques de Chizé (FR), Integrated Marine Observing System (AU), NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service Alaska Fisheries Science Center (US), First Institute of Oceanography (CN), Sydney Institute of Marine Science (AU), Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques (FR), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (FR), University of Gothenburg (SE), Acadia University (CA), Macquarie University (AU)
Life below water, Climate action
Openalex Percentile: Top 10%
Marine animal studies overview
DOISourceOpenAlex
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