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Dr Barbara Block, invited speaker to IUCAWA 2014
Dr. Barbara Block is invited speaker to the International User Conference on Argos Wildlife Applications IUCAWA2014 that will be held from November 18 to 20 at the National Aquarium, Baltimore on the topic of diversity and ecology of species followed by Argos tags.
Wired OCEAN: USE biologging technology to track WILDLIFE AND predict the impacts of Climate Change
Read the Abstract on Argos Forum #79 (p.4)
Dr. Block’s research is focused on the physiology of tunas, sharks and billfishes and studies how large pelagic fishes utilize the open ocean environment. Dr. Block is Co-director of the Tuna Research and Conservation Center the only facility in North America holding bluefin tuna for captive
research. Her team has worked with engineers to develop and deploy electronic tags on ocean fish and sharks. The combination of lab and field work has led to a rapid increase in the understanding of movement patterns, population structure, physiology and behaviors of pelagic fish.
Tuna are ocean athletes — fast, far-ranging predators whose habits we’re just beginning to understand.
I’ve been fascinated for a lifetime by the beauty, form and function of giant bluefin tuna. Bluefin are warmblooded like us. They’re the largest of the tunas, the second-largest fish in the sea — bony fish. They actually are a fish that is endothermic — powers through the ocean with warm muscles like a mammal. That’s one of our bluefin at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. You can see in its shape and its streamlined design it’s powered for ocean swimming. It flies through the ocean on its pectoral fins, gets lift, powers its movements with a lunate tail. It’s actually got a naked skin for most of its body, so it reduces friction with the water. This is what one of nature’s finest machines.
