A small unmanned aerial system for estimating abundance and size of Antarctic predators

By M. Goebel, W. Perryman, J. Hinke, D. Krause, Nancy A. Hann, Steve Gardner, D. LeRoi. Polar Biology, 2015

196 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Quantifying the distribution and abundance of predators is integral to many ecological studies, but can be difficult in remote settings such as Antarctica. Recent advances in the development of unmanned aerial systems (UAS), particularly vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft, have provided a new tool for studying the distribution and abundance of predator populations. We detail our experience and testing in selecting a VTOL platform for use in remote, windy, perennially overcast settings, where acquiring cloud-free high-resolution satellite images is often impractical. We present results from the first use of VTOLs for estimating abundance, colony area, and density of krill-dependent predators in Antarctica, based upon 65 missions flown in 2010/2011 (n = 28) and 2012/2013 (n = 37). We address concerns over UAS sound affecting wildlife by comparing VTOL-generated noise to ambient and penguin-generated sound. We also report on the utility of VTOLs for missions other than abundance and distribution, namely to estimate size of individual leopard seals. Several characteristics of small, battery-powered VTOLs make them particularly useful in wildlife applications: (1) portability, (2) stability in flight, (3) limited launch area requirements, (4) safety, and (5) limited sound when compared to fixed-wing and internal combustion engine aircraft. We conclude that of the numerous UAS available, electric VTOLs are among the most promising for ecological applications.

Subfields: Ecology, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/238b1668d343fdaa53edbdbe5d3aa85b3c1e1edd

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In Ecology

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Citations in the corpus

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in environmental biology: a review (2019, methodology): “Goebel et al. (2015) and Krause et al. (2017) studied Hydrurga leptonyx (leopard seals) in the Antarctic to measure body size of those mammals.”
Drone Up! Quantifying Whale Behavior From a New Perspective Improves Observational Capacity (2018, background): “, 2017) through photogrammetry techniques; population, density and distribution estimates of pinnipeds (Goebel et al., 2015; Johnston et al., 2017), cetaceans (Hodgson et al.”
Flights of drones over sub-Antarctic seabirds show species- and status-specific behavioural and physiological responses (2018, methodology): “This altitude was chosen based on previous studies showing that at such altitude drones did not cause any reaction in penguins (Goebel et al. 2015) or limited reactions (Rümmler et al. 2016).”
The potential for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to conduct marine fauna surveys in place of manned aircraft (2018, background): “Multirotor UAVs are a comparatively new technology and have only appeared in the marine literature in the last few years (Durban et al., 2015; Goebel et al., 2015; Hodgson et al., 2016; Sweeney et al., 2016).”
Assessing use of and reaction to unmanned aerial systems in gray and harbor seals during breeding and molt in the UK (2015, methodology): “Biologists and ecologists have been quick to appreciate the data-gathering opportunities that remote small unmanned aerial survey systems offer, particularly as functionality and availability improve (e.g., Jones et al. 2006; Anderson and Gaston 2013; Goebel et al. 2015).”
An Economical Custom-Built Drone for Assessing Whale Health (2017, background): “…now extend to the polar regions where they have been used to monitor and estimate abundance of penguin populations (gentoo, Pygoscelis papua, and chinstrap, Pygoscelis antarctica) and estimate size and condition of leopard seals (Hydrurga leptonyx) (Goebel et al., 2015; Ratcliffe et al., 2015).”
Noise Levels of Multi-Rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles with Implications for Potential Underwater Impacts on Marine Mammals (2016, methodology): “Hence, the acoustic effect of UAVs on marine mammals in water, even when flying <10m above the study animals, is likely to be absent or very small, and far less than that of conventional aircrafts, as long as the type of UAVs used generate noise at similar or lower levels than the types (Splashdrone”
Unmanned aircraft systems in wildlife research: current and future applications of a transformative technology (2016, methodology): “Promisingly, recent research on the effectiveness of UAS in estimating wildlife population parameters (eg Koski et al. 2009; USGS 2011; Martin et al. 2012; Goebel et al. 2015) shows that this technique can indeed be highly accurate.”