Video Electronically tagging sea stars

TLF ID M008886

This is a colour video clip of marine scientist Dr Miles Lamare describing the process used to electronically tag sea stars. The clip shows Dr Lamare, from a New Zealand university, being interviewed. It also shows footage of Dr Lamare in the laboratory attaching a tag to a sea star; as well as sea stars moving in water in laboratory containers.





Educational details

Educational value
  • Dr Miles Lamare and fellow researchers in New Zealand were involved in creating a new tagging technique. These scientists wanted to electronically tag sea stars as part of a sea star research project. While tagging marine vertebrate animals is common, very few invertebrates have ever been tagged.
  • Attaching electronic tags to sea stars is challenging as sea stars are able to shed their arms. Dr Lamare's research group successfully attached tags to sea stars by piercing an arm with a metal loop. They then conducted laboratory tests to ensure that the tagging process did not affect the behaviour of the sea stars.
  • Sea stars are important marine predators and play a role in keeping the numbers of other organisms down. Sea stars are predators of many types of food including mussels, clams and oysters, and are in turn preyed upon by sharks and rays. Tagging sea stars in their natural environment tells scientists much about their feeding and movement patterns.
  • Electronic tags are a useful tool for gathering information about animals and their environment. Attaching tags to marine animals is an effective way of understanding more about ocean ecology. Data obtained from tags can help scientists to form conservation plans.
Year level

5; 6; 7; 8; 9

Learning area
  • Science

Other details

Contributors
  • Contributor
  • Name: Education Services Australia
  • Organization: Education Services Australia
  • Description: Data manager
  • Address: VIC, AUSTRALIA
  • URL: http://www.esa.edu.au/
  • Publisher
  • Name: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Organization: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Description: Publisher
  • Address: VIC, AUSTRALIA
  • URL: http://www.esa.edu.au/
  • Name: University of Waikato
  • Organization: University of Waikato
  • Description: Publisher
  • Address: NEW ZEALAND
  • URL: http://www.sciencelearn.org.nz
  • Resource metadata contributed by
  • Name: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Organisation: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Address: AUSTRALIA
  • URL: www.esa.edu.au
Access profile
  • Generic
Learning Resource Type
  • Video
Rights
  • © Education Services Australia Ltd 2011 (except where otherwise indicated). You may copy, communicate and adapt this metadata for non-commercial educational purposes provided you retain all acknowledgements associated with the material.