The Animal Tag Tools project is an Open Source set of standardized software tools written for Matlab, GNU Octave and R, to aid the processing, visualization and statistical analysis of tag data that aims to increase the output and reliability of studies involving high resolution tags.
Contact Us
General Questions?
Software bugs?
Submit an Issue on Github to flag problems with the Matlab toolbox or R toolbox
Principal Investigators
Mark Johnson
Mark is a senior research fellow at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. His research interests are in the development and application of high resolution biologging systems for studying wild animals. After completing a PhD in electronics engineering in New Zealand, he worked for 18 years at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in USA. There he joined with animal behaviorist, Peter Tyack, to develop a miniature sound and movement recording tag for cetaceans, dubbed the DTAG. This tag is now used widely in studies of foraging, social communication, locomotion and responses to anthropogenic sound in marine mammals. In 2011, Mark moved to St. Andrews where he is developing tags to study the long-term movements, behavior and sound exposure of marine and terrestrial animals, with the goal of assessing the consequences of increasing environmental noise on animals.
Stacy L. DeRuiter
Stacy DeRuiter teaches statistics at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, MI. She holds an undergraduate degree from St Olaf College (Um Yah Yah!) and a PhD from the WHOI/MIT Joint Program. Before Calvin, Stacy did postdoctoral work at WHOI, Ifremer (Plouzané, France) and CREEM (University of St Andrews, Scotland). Research interests include statistical analysis of multivariate time-series (tag) data to understand effects of noise on whale behavior. Other interests include kids, dogs, running, pottery, and trading statistical expertise for field work opportunities.
K. Alex Shorter
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Supporting Cast
Lucía Martina Martín López
Lucía is a postgraduate researcher in the Sea Mammal Research Unit at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. She is a marine biologist, with a MRes In Marine Mammal Science and a PhD focused on studying the fine scale biomechanics and bioenergetics of marine mammal’s locomotion. Lucía is interested in understanding how animals overcome and exploit forces to move efficiently in their natural environment, and how these biomechanical strategies of locomotion can be affected by anthropogenic disturbances.
Joaquin T. Gabaldon
Joaquin is a postgraduate researcher in the Robotics Department of the University of Michigan, working with Profs. K. Alex Shorter and Kira Barton. He received a Ph.D. in Robotics from the University of Michigan and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology. Joaquin is interested in understanding how marine mammals explore and make use of their environment, and is researching new ways to monitor their energetic expenditures through the use of biologging tags.