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Sophie Prendergast is a PhD student at the University of the Azores - OKEANOS. Today, she tells us a little about her super interesting work:

“Large migratory organisms exhibit specific, vertical and horizontal, behavioral patterns within their environment; however, the mechanistic drivers of these movement patterns remain poorly known. My PhD addresses these issues by directly linking the fine scale vertical and horizontal movement patterns of ectothermic blue sharks (Prionace glauca) and regionally endothermic sicklefin devil rays (Mobula tarapacana) by measuring overall dynamic body activity (ODBA), as a proxy for activity patterns, before exploring these relationships in the context of environmental temperature in the central North Atlantic and more specifically within Azores Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). These insights will be compiled to support the development of conservation and marine resource management strategies taking place in the Azores region.

To accomplish this work, we use a mix of traditional satellite tags and novel purpose-built biologging packages to collect internal temperature data alongside depth, ambient temperature, and acceleration for both blue sharks and sicklefin devil-rays. Combined assessments of this information allow us to investigate how these species interact with their 3-dimensional environment and predict their space use patterns could change in response to changing ocean temperatures. By understanding how these organisms respond to changing environmental temperatures, we can develop strategies that will provide effective protection for the species now and in the future. As internal temperature had never been collected for a mobulid species, developing a tag capable of recording this data was tricky. However, with support from the Save Our Seas Foundation and CEiiA we developed the Remora Tag, a biologging package capable of collecting internal temperature data from free-swimming sicklefin devil-rays. With successful deployments of the tag during the summer of 2024 we are excited to see where this one-of-a-kind dataset will lead us.”

You can search more about Sophie’s work with SOSF at: