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What is the context of this research?

Tiger sharks are known to continuously bounce dive through the water column, however whether this is a hunting, thermoregulation, navigation or energy conservation strategy is unknown. The development of advanced biologging tags with video cameras allows us to get a close up and remote view of their behavior. Our research group has managed to deploy four of these tags for very short periods at Ningaloo Reef, however time and cost constraints have limited deployment times and further sampling.

What is the significance of this project?

Tiger sharks are top predators in tropical and warm temperate marine ecosystems. They regulate the structure of ecosystems through top down effects in food chains. By concurrently recording video and environmental factors we want to understand the role of the tiger shark in the Ningaloo Reef system. Once we have a better understanding of the patterns and drivers of their vertical movements we can help conserve the species and predict how their movements may change with a changing climate.

What are the goals of the project?

We want to know the drivers of tiger shark vertical movement patterns. To do this we will tag up to 30 sharks with CATS cam and diary tags at Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia over a period of one month. Tags will be recovered after 24-48 hour deployments and the data downloaded.

Depth data will tell us the patterns of vertical movement. Combining these data with the analysis of other recorded parameters and video will allow us to determine the drivers of these patterns. Video analysis will give us remote insight into the hunting strategies of tiger sharks and we can also use these videos as educational tools online to share how these beautiful animals behave.