Environmental Sensors:

• our concern is best way to research, not the cheapest
• (What kind of processes do you want to understand?):
  • physical, chemical, and biological processes
  • species distribution and species numbers
    • tags: inefficient, but cheap
  • temperature, humidity, etc.
  • biological processes of organisms
    • chemical concentrations, etc.
  • behaviors, interactions
  • Frank Ventnor (?)- study DNA of the ocean
    • 20% overlap in biodiversity of 2 buckets of water both from same Sergassa sea
• (What proxies are available to understand these processes?):
  • Wireless is better
    • simpler
    • more aesthetically pleasing
    • but needs more power
      • but new technology offers ways for power to be created by movement, change in temperature, solar, etc.
    • every node in network is a transmitter and receiver
    • middle-men can weed out corrupt or repetitive data, or begin processing
  • sensors can be located on organisms or at a certain location
    • also consider marine environments: water pressure (only go down to ~75 ft)
      • dispersal of marine organisms
  • Remote Sensing & Satellites
    • Satellites not work so far
    • can't see deep into water
  • Ground Observations
    • kites and balloons
  • Ocean Current Observations
    • rubber duckies
  • put sensors on fishing boats
    • but do you care about stationary or just gps location
    • but would the fishermen agree?
• The environment is more than just turtles, finches, and ocean currents

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This web page created by Jill A. Rowehl

Email the author at ig3@mit.edu

Last Edited on Wednesday, 13-Oct-2004