ECHO is a four-wheeled, penguin-friendly bot created by the Marine Animal Remote Sensing Lab at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, and operating in Atka Bay in Antarctica as part of the MARE research project,The vehicle is 3 feet long and operates around eye level with the adult Emperor penguins, only a few feet away and without startling them. "We all know that the world is changing, and that change will have dramatic effects on biodiversity and on ecosystems, especially in very remote areas, like Antarctica," says Daniel P.Zitterbart, principal investigator of the Marine Animal Remote Sensing Lab.The MARE project will study the population dynamics of Emperor penguins for 30 years to assess the vulnerability of Antarctic ecosystems. Studying how an upper-level predator like the Emperor penguin is coping with climate change can tell scientists about the health of the entire Southern Ocean ecosystem, explains Celine Le Bohec, a research partner and ecologist on the MARE team.
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