Diving into the analysis of time–depth recorder and behavioural data records: A workshop summary

Directly observing the foraging behavior of animals in the marine environment can be extremely challenging, if not impossible, as such behavior often takes place beneath the surface of the ocean and in extremely remote areas. In lieu of directly observing foraging behavior, data from time–depth recorders and other types of behavioral data recording devices are commonly used to describe and quantify the behavior of fish, squid, seabirds, sea turtles, pinnipeds, and cetaceans. Often the definitions of actual behavioral units and analytical approaches may vary substantially which may influence results and limit our ability to compare behaviors of interest across taxonomic groups and geographic regions. A workshop was convened in association with the Fourth International Symposium on Bio-logging in Hobart, Tasmania on 8 March 2011, with the goal of providing a forum for the presentation, review, and discussion of various methods and approaches that are used to describe and analyze time–depth recorder and associated behavioral data records. The international meeting brought together 36 participants from 14 countries from a diversity of backgrounds including scientists from academia and government, graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and developers of electronic tagging technology and analysis software. The specific objectives of the workshop were to host a series of invited presentations followed by discussion sessions focused on (1) identifying behavioral units and metrics that are suitable for empirical studies, (2) reviewing analytical approaches and techniques that can be used to objectively classify behavior, and (3) identifying cases when temporal autocorrelation structure is useful for identifying behaviors of interest. Outcomes of the workshop included highlighting the need to better define behavioral units and to devise more standardized processing and analytical techniques in order to ensure that results are comparable across studies and taxonomic groups.