Tracking climate change

A UWindsor scientist is helping to lead the Arctic portion of a $168-million effort to measure the effects of climate change on the global movement of a wide variety of aquatic species.

Dr. Aaron Fisk, a researcher in the University’s Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research (GLIER), has joined the Ocean Tracking Network—a seven-year, world-wide initiative—to track the movement of at-risk fish and aquatic mammals.

Dubbed by some as “Blackberries for fish,” tracking devices are being implanted in fish and marine mammals. Scientists will create an “acoustic curtain” by locating electronic signal receivers at various points on the floors of 14 oceans across seven continents. Those receivers will record the signals emitted by the tracking devices to provide scientists with valuable data about their travel patterns.

Dr. Fisk travelled to Cumberland Sound, Nunavut, in August 2010 to place 24 external satellite tags on Greenland halibut and surgically implant about 150 acoustic tags in species such as Greenland shark, Arctic char and Arctic cod. He received $380,000 in direct funding and will help lead a 14-member group including partners at the University of Manitoba and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
 

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