Estimating the spatial position of marine mammals based on digital camera recordings.

ABSTRACT: Estimating the spatial position of organisms is essential to quantify interactions between the organism and the characteristics of its surroundings, for example, predator-prey interactions, habitat selection, and social associations. Because marine mammals spend most of their time under water and may appear at the surface only briefly, determining their exact geographic location can be challenging. Here, we developed a photogrammetric method to accurately estimate the spatial position of marine mammals or birds at the sea surface. Digital recordings containing landscape features with known geographic coordinates can be used to estimate the distance and bearing of each sighting relative to the observation point. The method can correct for frame rotation, estimates pixel size based on the re

SUBMITTER: Hoekendijk JP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4328763 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature