title: Dramatic effect of pop-up satellite tags on eel swimming.
abstract: The journey of the European eel to the spawning area in the Sargasso Sea is still a mystery. Several trials have been carried out to follow migrating eels with pop-up satellite tags (PSATs), without much success. As eels are very efficient swimmers, tags likely interfere with their high swimming efficiency. Here we report a more than twofold increase in swimming cost caused by a regular small satellite tag. The impact was determined at a range of swimming speeds with and without tag in a 2-m swimming tunnel. These results help to explain why the previous use of PSATs to identify spawning sites in the Sargasso Sea was thus far unsuccessful.
authors: ZF-Screens BV, Niels Bohrweg, CA Leiden, The Netherlands. e.burgerhout@biology.leidenuniv.nl
authors: Erik
authors: E
authors: Burgerhout
authors: Ryotaro
authors: R
authors: Manabe
authors: Sebastiaan A
authors: SA
authors: Brittijn
authors: Jun
authors: J
authors: Aoyama
authors: Katsumi
authors: K
authors: Tsukamoto
authors: Guido E E J M
authors: GE
authors: van den Thillart
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