Attributes of dives (i.e., proportion of time underwater, depth of dive, ascent and descent rates, duration of dive, time within 2 m of maximum depth, post dive surface interval) are extracted from pressure data, where depth (m) = pressure (dbars) * 1.019716 using the SAS software code provided. Dives were considered to be submergence below the water surface, which are define as recorded depth of >0.8 m (typical body length of adult common loons in this study). Because pressure data were collected at 20-sec intervals, we interpolated the times of both dive initiation and surfacing. Average ascent and descent rates were estimated individually for each loon and used to interpolate these times, where rates were based on median values derived from dives >47.25 m (n = 1,214). The descent rate used for interpolation was 1.056 m/sec and the ascent rate was 1.605 m/sec.
The code provided was used to process multiple Lotek Wireless Inc. archival geolocator tags; tag 250A-2782 is used in this example code.
files
- extracting dive profile sas code.sas this file is the sas code that performs the above tasks
- license is the standard USGS open license
