Bioadhesive interface for marine sensors on diverse soft fragile species

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 15; no. 1; p. 2958
• Main Authors: Duque Londono, Camilo, Cones, Seth F., Deng, Jue, Wu, Jingjing, Yuk, Hyunwoo, Guza, David E., Mooney, T. Aran, Zhao, Xuanhe
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 16-04-2024; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/301/923/1027; 639/638/298/923/1027; 704/829/826; 9/10; Adhesion; Animals; Biomass; Biomechanics; Climate change; Climatic data; Cnidaria; Ecophysiology; Ecosystem; Fisheries; Fishes - physiology; Glues; Humanities and Social Sciences; Hydrogels; Interspecific relationships; Mammals; Marine animals; Marine fish; Marine mammals; Marine organisms; multidisciplinary; Oceanography; Resource management; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Sensors; Shellfish; Squid; Suction
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-46833-4

Marine animals equipped with sensors provide vital information for understanding their ecophysiology and collect oceanographic data on climate change and for resource management. Existing methods for attaching sensors to marine animals mostly rely on invasive physical anchors, suction cups, and rigid glues. These methods can suffer from limitations, particularly for adhering to soft fragile marine species such as squid and jellyfish, including slow complex operations, unreliable fixation, tissue trauma, and behavior changes of the animals. However, soft fragile marine species constitute a significant portion of ocean biomass (>38.3 teragrams of carbon) and global commercial fisheries. Here we introduce a soft hydrogel-based bioadhesive interface for marine sensors that can provide rapid (time <22 s), robust (interfacial toughness >160 J m
−2
), and non-invasive adhesion on various marine animals. Reliable and rapid adhesion enables large-scale, multi-animal sensor deployments to study biomechanics, collective behaviors, interspecific interactions, and concurrent multi-species activity. These findings provide a promising method to expand a burgeoning research field of marine bio-sensing from large marine mammals and fishes to small, soft, and fragile marine animals.
It is useful to be able to equip marine animals with sensors, but it can be challenging to attach these to soft marine organisms. Here, the authors use an adhesive hydrogel to achieve rapid attachment of sensors to marine life including jellyfish, squid and lobster.