no. 3609 DATA PROCESSING SEABIRDS — KING, WATSON, GOULD 11 



Hours and miles of observations were recorded to the nearest .1 

 hour and whole mile respectively. The ship's location at noon was 

 recorded as midday position for a full day of observations but the 

 midpoint of the diurnal track was recorded for a partial day of obser- 

 vation. Surface plankton was collected in a 25-minute tow with a 

 1 meter .308 millimeter terminal mesh net. Volume was measured 

 by BCF personnel and recorded in cubic centimeters per cubic meter 

 of water strained. 



Computer Analysis 



The coded information was transferred from the cards onto magnetic 

 tape in the computer with the result that all data pertinent to each 

 sighting were stored and printed out as a unit. Thus, environmental 

 data and the raw materials for calculating densities were included with 

 the print-out for any individual sighting. 



The system has been programmed in COBOL [Common Oriented 

 Business Language] for a General Electric 425 digital computer having 

 128,000 characters of core storage. 



The data flow sheet for the system thus includes the sighting that 

 is recorded in the observer's field notes, edited and coded on the 

 intermediate sheets, punched into the cards, and transferred onto 

 tape in the computer where it is available for print-out, plot-out, and 

 analysis (fig. 5). 



With this information fed into the system, various questions may be 

 asked of the data. The simplest questions are descriptive: what 

 species occur in what numbers, where, and when? We can ask for a 

 detailed print-out of all the data for all sightings arranged by species, 

 by locality, or by time. Part of such a code print-out of red-footed 

 booby observations is shown in figure 6. 



Relatively simple correlations of species distribution with environ- 

 mental conditions may be requested as tallies to provide raw materials 

 for graphs or statistical analysis. Tallies of black-footed albatross 

 and sooty tern sightings at various surface water temperatures yield 

 data for plotting bar graphs (fig. 7) . The two species differ somewhat 

 in water temperature preference. 



More detailed compound questions involving several conditional 

 clauses will give more restricted print-outs; thus, by asking for all 

 records of sooty terns in aggregations greater than 25 seen feeding 

 within the first two hours after sunrise during May in association with 

 water 25°-27° C and having a salinity greater than 34.5 parts per thou- 

 sand we obtain a much more selective fisting. Indeed, only one sighting 

 qualified (fig. 8). The instructions are in COBOL code language, 

 which the computer understands. Asking this question of our 13,080 



