Nassau grouper resting at spawning aggregation site offshore Puerto Rico. Photo Credit: JP Zegarra

FACT Wiki Page

Check out the FACT Wiki page for best practices on receiver attachment methods, on how to manage receiver metadata, and more. Click here.

Acoustic Receiver Updates from Innovasea

Data Analysis Tools

VEMco Biotelemetry User Database (VEMBU)

Developed by our very own Joy Young the VEMco Biotelemetry User Database (VEMBU) is an access database used to store receiver and sensor metadata, download logs, and tagging metadata. The VEMBU has a lot of useful tools and outputs as well as a means to format data easily to be put into the FACT Datanode – the FACT Network’s detection sharing hub created by the Ocean Tracking Network. The VEMBU is named in honor of our friend Vembu Subramanian, a big supporter of the FACT Network who was taken from us too soon. To get a copy of the VEMBU please email thevembu@thefactnetwork.org

Check out our VEMBU Tutorial series on YouTube

Tutorial #1:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OluFXOIAbpI

Tutorial #2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrM0LCRccP8

Tutorial #3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg8V0iKVbow

Tutorial #4:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kxFpkyMnWA

Tutorial #5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEhRoCpSTrw

Tutorial #6:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxKAiZAVCnU

Tutorial #7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsVG4YbDM9Y

Tutorial #8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yJYrZfEACo

Tutorial #9: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fih0zwrGMyQ

Tutorial #10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKJKLHJuCXU

Marine Geospatial Ecology Tools (MGET)

A free open- source geoprocessing toolbox that works with ArcGIS. Some of the functions that we are the most excited about include the assistance the tool gives on detecting spatiotemporal patterns in fisheries data, building predictive species distribution models, and pulling in remote sensing data (created by the Marine geospatial ecology lab at Duke).

Launch MGET

R you into Programming? (See what we did there)

While many programming languages exist, the most common language used by FACT researchers is R. If you’re an R geek like us here are some useful tips and packages we think are pretty snazzy for animal tracking data analysis.

Acoustic Telemetry R Packages

GLATOS
ACTEL
VTRACK
AdeHabitat

Other Helpful R Packages

Tidyverse
Marmap (for calculating distances around barriers)

Other Collaborative Networks

Like Acoustic Telemetry? Check out these other collaborative networks

Acoustic Tracking Array Platform (ATAP)

Champlain Acoustic Telemetry Observation System (CATOS)

Southern California Acoustic Telemetry Tracking Network

Texas Acoustic Array Network (TEXAAN)

Animal Tracking Technology Manufacturers

At the FACT Network our researchers commonly use different tag types to help answer questions about animal movement. Below are links to some of the manufacturers our researchers use.

Got a cool tool, tag, or robot we should know about? Email us at webmaster@thefactnetwork.org