Animal-borne metrics enable acoustic detection of blue whale migration
Authors
Oestreich, William K.
Fahlbusch, James A.
Cade, David E.
Calambokidis, John
Margolina, Tetyana
Joseph, John
Friedlaender, Ari S.
McKenna, Megan F.
Stimpert, Alison K.
Southall, Brandon L.
Subjects
Advisors
Date of Issue
2020-12-07
Date
December 7, 2020
Publisher
Language
Abstract
Linking individual and population scales is fundamental to many concepts in ecology [1], including migration [2, 3]. This behavior is a critical [4] yet increasingly threatened [5] part of the life history of diverse organisms. Research on migratory behavior is constrained by observational scale [2], limiting ecological understanding and precise management of migratory populations in expansive, inaccessible marine ecosystems [6]. This knowledge gap is magnified for dispersed oceanic predators such as endangered blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus). As capital breeders, blue whales migrate vast distances annually between foraging and breeding grounds, and their population fitness depends on synchrony of migration with phenology of prey populations [7, 8]. Despite previous studies of individual-level blue whale vocal behavior via bio-logging [9, 10] and population-level acoustic presence via passive acoustic monitoring [11], detection of the life history transition from foraging to migration remains challenging. Here, we integrate direct high-resolution measures of individual behavior and continuous broad-scale acoustic monitoring of regional song production (Figure 1A) to identify an acoustic signature of the transition from foraging to migration in the Northeast Pacific population. We find that foraging blue whales sing primarily at night, whereas migratory whales sing primarily during the day. The ability to acoustically detect population-level transitions in behavior provides a tool to more comprehensively study the life history, fitness, and plasticity of population behavior in a dispersed, capital breeding population. Real-time detection of this behavioral signal can also inform dynamic management efforts [12] to mitigate anthropogenic threats to this endangered population [13, 14]).
Type
Report
Description
Supplemental Information can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.08.105.
The article of record as published may be located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.08.105
The article of record as published may be located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.08.105
Series/Report No
Department
Oceanography
Organization
Identifiers
NPS Report Number
Sponsors
W.K.O. is supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSFGRFP) and as a David and Lucile Packard Foundation Stanford Graduate Fellow. The NSF funded installation and maintenance of the MARS cabled observatory through awards 0739828 and 1114794. Hydrophone recording through MARS was supported by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, through a grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Thanks to C. Dawe, D. French, K. Heller, P. McGill, and the crew of the R/V Rachel Carson for design, deployment, and maintenance of the MARS hydrophone hardware system and to D. Cline and P. McGill for the decimated PAM data used in this study. Tagging efforts were funded by National Science Foundation Integrative Organismal Systems (NSF IOS) grant 1656691, Office of Naval Research (ONR) grants N00014-13-1-0772 and N00014-14-1-0414, and Office of Naval Research/Living Marine Resources (ONR/LMR) grants N39430-16-C-1853 and N39430-15-C-1692. Additional funding for 2019 field efforts was provided by the California Ocean Alliance. Thank you to the crew of the R/V John Martin for support in the 2017 and 2018 tagging efforts. Thank you also to M. Chapman, M. Savoca, and three anonymous reviewers for comments that improved this manuscript.
Funder
Format
11 p.
Citation
Oestreich, William K., et al. "Animal-borne metrics enable acoustic detection of blue whale migration." Current Biology 30.23 (2020): 4773-4779.
Distribution Statement
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.