Dramatic effect of pop-up satellite tags on eel swimming |
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Authors: | Erik Burgerhout Ryotaro Manabe Sebastiaan A. Brittijn Jun Aoyama Katsumi Tsukamoto Guido E. E. J. M. van den Thillart |
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Affiliation: | (1) ZF-Screens BV, Niels Bohrweg 11, 2333 CA Leiden, The Netherlands;(2) Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa Chiba, 277-8546, Japan;(3) Institute of Biology Leiden, Leiden University, Gorlaeus Lab, POB 9502, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands |
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Abstract: | The journey of the European eel to the spawning area in the Sargasso Sea is still a mystery. Several trials have been carried out to follow migrating eels with pop-up satellite tags (PSATs), without much success. As eels are very efficient swimmers, tags likely interfere with their high swimming efficiency. Here we report a more than twofold increase in swimming cost caused by a regular small satellite tag. The impact was determined at a range of swimming speeds with and without tag in a 2-m swimming tunnel. These results help to explain why the previous use of PSATs to identify spawning sites in the Sargasso Sea was thus far unsuccessful. |
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