Category Archives: Editors’ Select Series

Editors’ Select Webinar: Cost of migration and migratory timing in Western Australian humpback whales, with Grace Russell

by

You are invited to the next edition of the SMM Editors’ Select Webinar Series. This series highlights the latest and most exciting marine mammal science published in the Marine Mammal Science Journal. The SMM created this series to give scientists and citizens around the world a chance to engage with marine mammal scientists, learn, and ask questions. All are welcome!

Join us on Thursday April 18th 2024 at 04 pm PDT / 7 pm EDT / 7 am AWST (+1)
for the next SMM Editors’ Select Series Webinar:
Cost of migration and migratory timing in Western Australian humpback whales
with Grace Russell

This event was recorded live and published on youtube.
For future events, please check our news room or join the SMM Facebook page.

About this talk:
Migratory humpback whales cover the cost of reproduction in low-latitude breeding grounds with stored energy accumulated from polar feeding grounds. The ability to accumulate sufficient energy reserves during feeding periods is vital for key life history stages during migration, including mating, calving, and lactation. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between migration timing and body condition of Western Australian humpback whales. We used drone footage to measure body condition by obtaining morphometric measurements from 460 individuals. The body condition of juveniles was shown to be correlated with migration timing for their northern migration, with individuals in better body condition migrating to the breeding grounds earlier. While stored energy is vital for humpback whales to successfully complete their vast migration to-and-from breeding grounds, we found no evidence that body condition affects the migration timing for adults, lactating females, and calves.

About the presenter:
Grace has recently completed her PhD at Southern Cross University in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales. For the past four years she has studied the body condition of the two breeding populations of humpback whales in Australia (east and west coast) and the South-east Indian Ocean population of pygmy blue whales, exploring the relationship between migration timing and body condition, as well as energetic usage over their migration. During her PhD Grace created The Fat Whales Project and now her research focuses on the energetics, physiology and morphology of cetacean species in Australia. Grace is an experienced remote pilot (using drones) and has worked on marine mammal research projects in Bremer Bay (orca), Ningaloo Reef (blue whales), and the Great Barrier Reef (dolphins).

Open access to this article is made temporarily available in the weeks around the presentation and can be found here. Current SMM members have access to all Marine Mammal Science papers.

Missed a presentation or want to share this series with a friend? All previous Editors’ Select presentations are recorded and archived on our YouTube channel here.

 

SMM Editors’ Select Series Webinar, 21 March 2024: A first investigation of geographical variation in Cape fur seals’ in-air vocalizations, with Dr. Mathilde Martin

by

You are invited to the next edition of the SMM Editors’ Select Webinar Series. This series highlights the latest and most exciting marine mammal science published in the Marine Mammal Science Journal. The SMM created this series to give scientists and citizens around the world a chance to engage with marine mammal scientists, learn, and ask questions. All are welcome!

Join us on Thursday March 21st 2024 at 10 am EDT / 3 pm CET
for the next SMM Editors’ Select Series Webinar:
A first investigation of geographical variation in Cape fur seals’ in-air vocalizations
with Dr. Mathilde Martin

This event was recorded live and published on youtube: https://youtu.be/yKh-DjF-7WU
For future events, please check our news room or join the SMM Facebook page.

About this talk:
Marine mammals are known to communicate extensively through acoustic signals in all their social interactions. In pinnipeds (seals, fur seals, and walruses), breeding takes place on land (or on ice) and individuals use in-air vocalisations to exchange information between mating partners or between mother and young. Cape fur seals breed at about 40 different breeding sites distributed along the southwest and south coasts of Southern Africa. These colonies are located on both the mainland and islands and are characterized by various terrains such as bare rock, boulders, ledges, or open sandy beaches. In this study, we compared the acoustic features of Cape fur seals’ vocalisations recorded at 6 different study sites in Namibia and South Africa to investigate potential geographical variation in the species’ vocal repertoire. Comparisons among closely located sites revealed limited geographical variation whereas more pronounced differences were found in the frequency structure of males, females and pups’ vocalisations recorded at more distant sites. Although we were unable to control for certain factors (mainly due to the difficulty of accessing the colonies), we discuss here the potential impact of social and environmental factors in driving intra-species variation in Cape fur seals’ vocalisations. Such investigations help understand how acoustic communication in marine mammals is shaped by ecological drivers.

About the presenter:
Mathilde Martin is a biologist, specialist in animal behaviour, and more specifically in acoustic communication in terrestrial and marine mammals. Her research focuses on deciphering what information is encoded in their vocalisations and how vocal signals can modulate socials interactions, in relation to the species’ ecological constraints. Her approach combines audio recordings in the field, analyses of the acoustic structure of vocalisations and experimental tests on wild animals. Mathilde first explored the social calls exchanged during mother-calf interactions in humpback whales. Then, during her PhD at the Institute of Neurosciences Paris-Saclay, she investigated several aspects of the acoustic communication network of the Cape fur seal, such as the transmission of individual information, male-male or mother-pup individual vocal recognition systems, as well as the impact of noise pollution on the behaviour of these animals. She is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zurich where she is studying the role of meerkats’ close calls in the maintenance of group cohesion during foraging.

Open access to this article is made temporarily available in the weeks around the presentation and can be found here. Current SMM members have access to all Marine Mammal Science papers.

Missed a presentation or want to share this series with a friend? All previous Editors’ Select presentations are recorded and archived on our YouTube channel here.

SMM Editors’ Select Series Webinar, 15 February 2024: Foraging migration ontogeny in southern elephant seals with Dr. Trevor McIntyre

by

You are invited to the next edition of the SMM Editors’ Select Webinar Series. This series highlights the latest and most exciting marine mammal science published in the Marine Mammal Science Journal. The SMM created this series to give scientists and citizens around the world a chance to engage with marine mammal scientists, learn, and ask questions. All are welcome!

Join us on Thursday February 15th 2024 at 10 am PST / 6 pm GMT
for the next SMM Editors’ Select Series Webinar:
Foraging migration ontogeny in southern elephant seals: finding their way as they go?
with Dr. Trevor McIntyre

This event was recorded live and put on youtube: https://youtu.be/z5idHO-KHvg
For future events, please check our news room or join the SMM Facebook page.

About this talk:
Elephant seal pups are abandoned by their mothers when they are between three and four weeks of age. After a short period of fasting on-land, they depart on their first foraging migrations unaccompanied by adults. These maiden foraging trips normally last longer than three months, during which they must avoid potential predators such as orcas and find sufficient food in the vast Southern Ocean. The development of the skills needed to successfully navigate these early foraging trips is poorly understood, not only in elephant seals, but in many animals that perform extreme migratory behaviours. We studied the maiden foraging trips of recently weaned southern elephant seal pups from Marion Island ̶ a small, but intensively studied population located in the southern Indian Ocean. Unlike the adults of this population, recently weaned pups did not show evidence of consistency in travel directions, distances and speed of travel between individuals, or even between sequential foraging trips by the same individuals. Cumulatively, our results suggest that the foraging strategies of adult elephant seals from this population are strongly influenced by rapid learning while at-sea and is likely less reliant on innate behaviours or innate responses to large-scale environmental cues. There remains a need for continued longitudinal studies to better understand what the likely population-level effects of juvenile behavioural strategies are.

About the presenter:
Dr Trevor McIntyre is an Associate Professor in Zoology at the University of South Africa (UNISA). He first started working with marine mammals as a field assistant on the Marion Island Marine Mammal Programme in 2005, before continuing with his PhD studies on at-sea behaviours of southern elephant seals at the University of Pretoria. Dr McIntyre then commenced  a few years of postdoctoral research in South Africa and at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, followed by a lecturing position at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, before joining UNISA in 2019. His broad research interests are centred around behavioural adaptations of animals to environmental change, particularly for semi-aquatic mammals such as seals and otters. Current research projects he is involved in include studies on the ecology of African clawless otter in freshwater systems of South Africa and Ross seals in the eastern Weddell Sea, Antarctica.

Open access to this article is made temporarily available in the weeks around the presentation and can be found here. Current SMM members have access to all Marine Mammal Science papers.

Missed a presentation or want to share this series with a friend? All previous Editors’ Select presentations are recorded and archived on our YouTube channel here.

SMM Editors’ Select Series Webinar, 18 January 2024: Eavesdropping on working whales, with Dr. Renee Albertson

by

You are invited to the next edition of the SMM Editors’ Select Webinar Series. This series highlights the latest and most exciting marine mammal science published in the Marine Mammal Science Journal. The SMM created this series to give scientists and citizens around the world a chance to engage with marine mammal scientists, learn, and ask questions. All are welcome!
 
Join us on Thursday January 18th 2024 at 1 pm PST / 9 pm GMT
for the next SMM Editors’ Select Series Webinar:
Eavesdropping on working whales: remote monitoring of adult gray whale lung volumes
with Dr. Renee Albertson
 

This event was recorded live and put on youtube: https://youtu.be/aEOnLXq390Q
For future events, please check our news room or join the SMM Facebook page.

 
About this talk:
Understanding how a species’ metabolic rate varies in different behavioral contexts is useful for quantifying prey requirements and foraging efficiencies of individuals. Field metabolic rates (FMR) are daily estimates of oxygen consumption, which depend on three factors: lung capacity, breathing rate, and the amount of oxygen extracted from the air. This study describes a novel approach to estimating tidal lung volumes (VT) of actively foraging adult gray whales and compares those to VT estimates of gray whales studied in a winter breeding/calving lagoon. An unoccupied aircraft system (UAS) along the central Oregon coast monitored foraging whales from 2016-2020. Breathing patterns of gray whales typically include very rapid exhalation/inhalation events as they surface, followed by submerged breath holds of varying duration and depth. UAS video and acoustic recordings revealed that foraging whales have 35-40% higher mass-relative VT values than resting lagoon females. This reflects differences in behavior, activity levels, and oxygen needs between the two groups.
The tidal lung volumes of fasting lagoon whales and foraging whales fall between that of resting terrestrial mammals and small to medium-sized odontocetes. The methods described here, especially the use of UASs for measuring body lengths and breathing rates, provide a new tool for estimating gray whale oxygen consumption and energy requirements.
 
About the presenter:
Dr. Renee Albertson is a teaching professor and research affiliate at Oregon State University, where her current research focuses on gray whale physiology. In collaboration with multiple scientists within the university’s Marine Mammal Institute, she has been studying gray whale metabolic rates and aerobic dive limits, including the research she will share today. Dr. Albertson earned BS degrees in Chemistry and Biochemistry and a MA in Teaching from Pacific University in 1994 and 1997, and taught high school chemistry from 1997 to 2007. She began her career in marine mammal science in 2005, when she completed an intensive internship in Moorea, French Polynesia working on photo-identification of small cetaceans and humpback whales. She went on to complete her MSc and PhD degrees at Oregon State University with Dr. Scott Baker, where she used genetic markers and photo identification to study migratory patterns and abundance of South Pacific humpback whales and phylogeographic patterns and taxonomic and social structures of rough-toothed dolphins. After completing her PhD in 2014 she worked as a postdoctoral scholar for Dr. Ari Friedlaender, where she evaluated changes in humpback whale migration and fine-scale population structure in the Western Antarctic Peninsula, one of the fastest warming areas on the planet. Today, in addition to her research, she teaches several field-based marine mammal courses at Oregon State University and continues to collaborate with scientists and policy makers in the South Pacific.
 
Open access to this article is made temporarily available in the weeks around the presentation and can be found here. Current SMM members have access to all Marine Mammal Science papers.
 
Missed a presentation or want to share this series with a friend? All previous Editors’ Select presentations are recorded and archived on our YouTube channel here.

SMM Editors’ Select Series Webinar, 14 December 2023: Calling rate changes in association with passing ships in Milne Inlet, Nunavut, Canada, with Crystal Radtke

by

You are invited to the next edition of the SMM Editors’ Select Webinar Series. This series highlights the latest and most exciting marine mammal science published in the Marine Mammal Science Journal. The SMM created this series to give scientists and citizens around the world a chance to engage with marine mammal scientists, learn, and ask questions. All are welcome!

Join us on Thursday December 14th 2023 at 5 pm AST / 9 pm GMT
for the next SMM Editors’ Select Series Webinar:
Narwhal calling rate changes in association with passing ships in Milne Inlet, Nunavut, Canada
with Crystal Radtke

This event was recorded live and put on youtube: youtu.be/kYpoMpsdrTU 
For future events, please check our news room or join the SMM Facebook page.

About this talk:
Concerns were raised about possible behavioural disturbance to narwhals (Monodon monoceros) when exposed to shipping noise in Milne Inlet, Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada. It is known that marine mammals often change their behaviours especially their vocalizations, around ships.  With the use of underwater recordings operating continuously over two months (in 2018 and 2019), narwhal vocalizations in Milne Inlet were analyzed. Narwhals produce three social call types, whistles, buzzes and knocks. The calling rates of each call type were determined when no ships were present and during ship transits in a before-during-after analysis. Narwhal call counts were generally lower when bulk carriers were within line-of-sight (5 km), including when ship noise levels were barely above background noise levels. Call counts varied both “before” and “after” individual bulk carriers passed by the recorders. There was no evidence of habituation or sensitization to the bulk carrier noise within or between years. Continued monitoring in this area is recommended, especially if shipping levels increase.

About the presenter:
Crystal studied at the University of New Brunswick, in Saint John, NB, Canada for undergraduate and graduate studies. Her honours project was on the underwater soundscape of Mawson Station, Antarctica and the impacts this could have on the masking of Weddell seal calls.  Her masters thesis was on the classification of narwhal calls and the changes in calling rates in association with passing ships. She has also volunteered with various organizations (Bimini Biological Field Station, Dolphin Communication Project and Operation Wallacea) for marine mammal, fish and marine invertebrate studies.

Open access to this article is made temporarily available in the weeks around the presentation and can be found here. Current SMM members have access to all Marine Mammal Science papers.

Missed a presentation or want to share this series with a friend? All previous Editors’ Select presentations are recorded and archived on our YouTube channel here.

SMM Editors’ Select Series Webinar, 19 October 2023. Genetically separate populations of dugongs in Australia, with Dr. Janet Lanyon

by


You are invited to the next edition of the SMM Editors’ Select Webinar Series. This series highlights the latest and most exciting marine mammal science published in the Marine Mammal Science Journal. The SMM created this series to give scientists and citizens around the world a chance to engage with marine mammal scientists, learn, and ask questions. All are welcome!

Join us on Thursday, 19 October 2023 at 5pm EDT / 10pm GMT / 7am +1 AEST
for the next SMM Editors’ Select Series Webinar:
Genetically separate populations of dugongs in Australia:
implications for coping with local environmental stressors
with Dr. Janet Lanyon

This event was recorded live and put on youtube: youtu.be/PpUeaEFK5eY 
For future events, please check our news room or join the SMM Facebook page.

About this talk:
Despite the lack of obvious physical barriers and their ability to travel significant distances, many marine mammals exhibit substantial population structuring over relatively short geographical distances. The dugong (Dugong dugon) is a vulnerable marine mammal found in inshore seagrass habitats throughout the Indo-Pacific, including in the waters of northern Australia. We investigated the genetic population structure of dugongs in the shallow coastal waters along >2000 km of the eastern Queensland coast including the Great Barrier Reef region. Microsatellite genotypes for 22 loci in 293 dugongs, SNP genotypes based on 10,690 loci in 43 dugongs, and 410 bp mitochondrial control-region sequences from 639 dugongs were analysed. Clustering analysis techniques consistently identified an abrupt genetic break in the Whitsunday Islands region of central Queensland (20.3°S), which interrupts an overall pattern of isolation-by-distance. Geographic distance was relatively more important than sea-surface temperature and seagrass distribution in explaining pairwise microsatellite genetic distances. The cause of reduced dispersal across this region is unknown but might relate to an unusual tidal and current mix, termed the ‘sticky-water’ effect, and/or a break in the geographical distribution of offshore seagrass meadows. This genetic structuring suggests distinct breeding units north and south of the Whitsunday Islands region, and also mostly separate populations with limited gene flow within each of the north and south ranges. Recently, profiles of faecal microbiota from dugongs from all along the Queensland coast show marked variation, supporting these separate populations and possibly indicating ecological differences, e.g., feeding niches. Implications of these separate genetic populations in terms of how dugongs might respond to local threats to habitat and how these findings should be considered when developing management plans for Queensland dugongs will be discussed.

About the presenter:
Janet Lanyon is a zoologist, specializing in marine mammal biology. For thirty years, Janet has been a full-time academic at The University of Queensland (UQ) and Director of the UQ Marine Vertebrate Research Group. Since 1995, she has been Lead Investigator in a long-term population and health study of the dugongs of southern Queensland, Australia. She has published widely on diverse aspects of the biology of marine wildlife, and is an Associate Editor of the journal Marine Mammal Science. Her research expertise includes the ecology, physiology and conservation biology of marine megafaunal wildlife, principally dugongs, coastal dolphins and sea turtles.

Open access to this article is made temporarily available in the weeks around the presentation and can be found here. Current SMM members have access to all Marine Mammal Science papers.

Missed a presentation or want to share this series with a friend? All previous Editors’ Select presentations are recorded and archived on our YouTube channel here.

SMM Editors’ Select Series Webinar, 21 September 2023! Using drones to investigate the timing of harbour seal pupping, with Dr. Anders Galatius

by

You are invited to the next edition of the SMM Editor’s Select Webinar Series. This series highlights the latest and most exciting marine mammal science published in the Marine Mammal Science Journal. The SMM created this series to give scientists and citizens around the world a chance to engage with marine mammal scientists, learn, and ask questions. All are welcome!

Join us on Thursday, 21 September 2023 at 1 pm EDT / 6 pm GMT / 7 pm CET
for the next SMM Editors’ Select Series Webinar:
Using drones to investigate the timing of harbour seal pupping, with Dr. Anders Galatius

This event was recorded live and put on youtube: https://youtu.be/3zEoPu8d4ks 
For future events, please check our news room or join the SMM Facebook page.

About this talk:
Harbour seal females give birth to their single pup during a distinct pupping season, which occurs during the summer in most areas. To obtain unbiased estimates of the pup production of harbour seals, surveys of seal colonies need to be timed optimally and conducted under sufficiently similar conditions. In the Limfjord, the resident harbour seal population have about 95% of their pups at two haul-outs, Ejerslev Røn and Blinderøn just 3 km apart. The short distance makes this area ideal for investigation with drones. We counted harbour seal pups at these two haul-outs throughout the pupping season in June for three consecutive years, 2017-2019. As harbour seal pups can swim almost from birth, there was considerable variation in the counts. Some of this variation could be related to date; as the season progressed, increasing numbers of pups were hauled out, before the counts began to drop, with an estimated peak in counts on June 22nd. Weather also impacted the counts, on windy days, fewer pups were counted. These findings will be used in the planning and interpretation of harbour seal pup surveys in Denmark.

About the presenter:
Anders Galatius is a senior researcher at Aarhus University’s Department of Ecoscience where he works on marine mammal morphology, ecology and behaviour. He graduated as MSc from University of Copenhagen, Denmark in 2003 and obtained his PhD from the same university in 2009. He has been working at Aarhus University since 2010, leading the Danish seal monitoring programmes of harbour seals and grey seals since 2013.

Open access to this article is made temporarily available in the weeks around the presentation and can be found here. Current SMM members have access to all Marine Mammal Science papers.

Missed a presentation or want to share this series with a friend? All previous Editors’ Select presentations are recorded and archived on our YouTube channel here.

SMM Seminar Editors’ Select Webinar, 17 August 2023! How to weigh a sperm whale using drone images? with Maria Glarou

by

You are invited to the next edition of the SMM Seminar Editor’s Select Series Webinar. This series highlights the latest and most exciting marine mammal science published in the Marine Mammal Science Journal. The SMM created this series to give scientists and citizens around the world a chance to engage with marine mammal scientists, learn, and ask questions. All are welcome!

Join us on Thursday, 17 August 2023 at 7 am PDT / 10 am EDT / 2 pm GMT
for the next SMM Seminar Editors’ Select Series Webinar:
How to weigh a sperm whale using drone images? with Maria Glarou

This event was recorded live and published on youtube: https://youtu.be/bJO0RQK0EJs
For future events, please check our news room or join the SMM Facebook page.

About this talk:
Body mass is a fundamental characteristic of animals. Although sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) are the largest toothed predators on earth, body mass is seldom included in studies of their ecology and physiology due to the inherent difficulties of obtaining direct measurements. We used drone images to estimate the weight of free-ranging sperm whales. We collected aerial images of 102 sperm whales (of all reproductive classes) in the Eastern Caribbean and Mediterranean Sea during 2017–2020. First, we obtained body length, width, and height (at 5% increments) measurements from dorsal and lateral drone images. Based on these measurements, we then created an elliptical 3D body shape model to calculate the body volume of the animals. We used 4 different approaches to convert volume to mass: tissue-density estimates from catch data, animal-borne tags, and body-tissue composition. Our results showed that the average total body density ranged from 834 to 1,003 kg/m3, while the weight predictions matched with existing measurements and weight-length relationships described in previous research. Our body-mass models can be used to study sperm whale bioenergetics, including inter- and intra-seasonal variations in body condition, somatic growth, metabolic rates, and cost of reproduction.

About the presenter:
Maria Glarou is originally from Greece. She holds a BSc degree in Biology from the University of Patras (Greece), and is a MSc graduate from Stockholm University (Sweden) with a degree in Marine Biology. Her main research interests revolve around cetacean bioenergetics, ecology and ecophysiology, as well as the impacts of human disturbance on cetaceans. For her MSc project, she conducted a pilot study in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, exploring small-scale fisheries interactions with small marine mammals. She is currently a PhD fellow at the University of Iceland’s Research Center in Húsavík, where she studies the allometry of physiological and behavioural thermoregulatory adaptations of different-sized cetaceans in Skjálfandi Bay, NE-Iceland.

Open access to this article is made temporarily available in the weeks around the presentation and can be found here. Current SMM members have access to all Marine Mammal Science papers.

Missed a presentation or want to share this series with a friend? All previous Editors’ Select presentations are recorded and archived on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUc78IynQlubS2DVS1VZoplf_t42-yZOO

SMM Seminar Editors’ Select Series, July 20th 2023! Assimilation takes time: integration of two dolphin societies, with Dr. Cindy Elliser

by

This series highlights the latest and most exciting marine mammal science published in the Marine Mammal Science Journal. The SMM created this series to give scientists and citizens around the world a chance to engage with marine mammal scientists, learn, and ask questions. All are welcome!

Join us on Thursday, 20 July 2023 at 3pm PDT / 6pm EDT / 10pm GMT
for the next SMM Seminar Editors’ Select Series
Assimilation takes time: integration of two dolphin societies
with Dr. Cindy Elliser

This event is free to attend and presented online via Zoom, but registration is required.
Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_CevPOor4Q8-BOom0BHG_bA
Space on Zoom is limited to the first 500 attendees. The talk will also be streamed live on the SMM Facebook page.

About this talk:
In the Bahamas live two communities of spotted dolphins separated by deep water: one on Little Bahama Bank (LBB) off of Grand Bahama Island and one on Great Bahama Bank (GBB) off of Bimini. In 2013 an unprecedented 50% of the LBB spotted dolphins moved across the deep water and took up residence on GBB. This type of large-scale immigration is rare. How does such a large group of dolphins move into an established community? This is the story of how these two communities have reacted, how they have integrated and how this is shaping the social structure of this new community.

About the presenter:
Dr. Cindy R. Elliser is the Research Director and Founder of Pacific Mammal Research (PacMam) and Associate Director of the Salish Sea Institute at Western Washington University. She received her B.S. (2000) and M.S. (2003) in Biological Sciences from Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and received her Ph.D. in Integrative Biology from FAU in 2010. Her work focuses on photo-identification, behavioral ecology and social structure of marine mammals. For 10 years she worked with Dr. Denise Herzing and the Wild Dolphin Project studying Atlantic spotted and bottlenose dolphins in the Bahamas. In 2014 Dr. Elliser moved to the Pacific Northwest and founded PacMam to study marine mammals in the Salish Sea, particularly harbor porpoises and harbor seals. Dr. Elliser also teaches biology and related courses as an associate professor at Skagit Valley College and Western Washington University.

Open access to this article is made temporarily available in the weeks around the presentation and can be found here. Current SMM members have access to all Marine Mammal Science papers.

Missed a presentation or want to share this series with a friend? All previous Editors’ Select presentations are recorded and archived on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUc78IynQlubS2DVS1VZoplf_t42-yZOO

SMM Seminar Editors’ Select Series: Are dolphins more affected by commercial fisheries than artisanal fisheries? with Tim Awbery

by

This series highlights the latest and most exciting marine mammal science published in the Marine Mammal Science Journal. The SMM created this series to give scientists and citizens around the world a chance to engage with marine mammal scientists, learn and ask questions. All are welcome.Join us on Thursday, 16 February 2023 at 4 pm GMT / 8 am PST / 11 am EST
for the next SMM Seminar Editors’ Select Series:
Are dolphins more affected by commercial fisheries than artisanal fisheries?: A case study from Montenegro
with Tim Awbery

This event is free to attend and presented online via Zoom, but registration is required.
Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_wIJwObUlS4WwS7lv5g2utA
Space on Zoom is limited to the first 500 attendees. The talk will also be streamed live on the SMM Facebook page.

About this talk:
Since bottlenose dolphins often inhabit coastal waters and have a diet consisting mainly of fish, it is unsurprising that they often overlap with fisheries. While a number of previous studies have demonstrated that the presence of boats (particularly those associated with whale-watching) affect marine mammal behaviours, to our knowledge nobody has addressed whether different types of fishing vessels alter marine mammal behaviour. In this study, a combination of land-based and boat-based surveys were used to look at four different bottlenose dolphin behaviours, including diving, socialising, surface-feeding, and travelling. Dolphins were observed in both the presence of large commercial vessels and smaller artisanal fisheries, as well as in the absence of any marine vessel traffic. Both commercial fishing vessels and artisanal vessels were found to affect the behaviour of dolphins, but in different ways. Commercial fishing boats significantly altered the proportion of time that bottlenose dolphins spent performing three out of four of the recorded behaviours. While artisanal fishing boats only affected the proportion of time spent performing one behaviour, this behaviour was surface-feeding, important to dolphins for obvious reasons. If dolphin behaviours are interrupted for a long period, it is likely to have consequences on the health of the dolphin population. This work, alongside previous studies, demonstrates that vessel type is an important factor in how a dolphin might be disturbed and therefore must be taken into account when considering management strategies.

About the presenter:
Tim Awbery is a researcher in the Marine Mammal Research Team at the Scottish Association for Marine Science, currently investigating minke whales on the west coast of Scotland. Previously, Tim worked in the Mediterranean for DMAD – Marine Mammals Research Association, a non-government organization based in Turkey. While his work took him throughout the north-east Mediterranean, he was predominantly based in Montenegro, Turkey, and Albania, working on several marine mammal research projects. Tim has been involved in the publication of a range of studies providing some of the first data from overlooked regions in these countries. His research has two primary focuses: building a baseline of marine mammal data in understudied areas and using these data to understand where marine mammals and human threats overlap and how these threats affect marine mammals. He intends his work to inform conservation by providing concrete information, rather than leaving managers to rely on anecdotal evidence when making decisions.

Open access to all Marine Mammal Science papers is available to current SMM members. Open access to this article is made temporarily available to the public in the weeks around the presentation and can be found here.

Missed a presentation or want to share this series with a friend? All previous Editors’ Select  presentations are recorded and archived on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUc78IynQlubS2DVS1VZoplf_t42-yZOO