Category Archives: Society News

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.

Vote for SMM’s 2024 Honorary Member(s)

by

Dear Members,

This is your reminder to vote for SMM’s Honorary Member nominees by 30 January 2024.

We are pleased to present two new nominees to become Honorary Members for you to vote on. An Honorary Member is a member recognized for distinguished service to the field of marine mammalogy, as recommended unanimously by the Board of Governors, and elected by two-thirds of the voting members. Honorary Members have all the privileges of full members but are exempt from dues.

Here is the link to the ballot: https://marinemammalscience.org/for-members/2023-members-ballot/

The ballot will close at 3:00 PM EST on 30 January 2024.

Best wishes,
Katharina J. Peters
Nominations and Elections Committee Chair

Deadline to Nominate an SMM Fellow is 15 January 2024

by

NOMINATE A FELLOW MEMBER
In 2019, the members of the Society for Marine Mammalogy (SMM) voted to establish a Fellows Membership Category. We are pleased to announce our Society’s second call for nominations of Fellow Members.

The SMM Constitution identifies a ‘Fellow’ as a member who is being recognized by the Society and its membership as having “rendered conspicuous service or made truly notable contributions to the advancement and diffusion of the knowledge of marine mammal science or the fostering of its practical applications through conservation of marine mammals. Payment of dues to the Society by the Fellow would remain the same as for a normal Full member.”

Nominations are Open.
The deadline to nominate a fellow is 15 January 2024. So please come nominate a Fellow for the Society.

ELIGIBILITY
Any current Full member of the SMM after being a Full member for a minimum of five years is eligible. These five years do not have to be contiguous. Please confirm with the nominee that they meet the five-year eligibility criterion prior to submission.

Note: the current members of the SMM Board (which includes elected officers and committee chairs) are not eligible for consideration for Fellows status.

HOW TO NOMINATE
If you are a current SMM member, you may nominate an eligible SMM member as a Fellow. We ask that you submit a complete dossier, described in detail below, to the Fellows Nomination web page by 15 January 2024. The dossier must be uploaded to the Fellows Nomination web page as a single .pdf document.

Each dossier shall include the following elements.

(1) Letter of Nomination. This letter should provide insight into a nominee’s service, notable contributions to the advancement and diffusion of the knowledge of marine mammal science, or the fostering of its practical applications through the conservation of marine mammals. The nominating letter can be no longer than one page (12 pt font).
The Committee will consider the following factors:

  1. service to the Society;
  2. contributions to marine mammal science including activities such as publications and presentations, field work, research and development, or administrative and logistical support; or
  3. contributions to the teaching or dissemination of knowledge of marine mammal science and conservation. Due to the diversity of disciplines and activities of The Society for Marine Mammalogy members, the relative importance of these factors will differ from candidate to candidate. The Fellow candidate would be expected to be exemplary in, and have made substantial contributions to, at least one of these factors (e.g. be in the top 10% of the membership).

(2) Seconding letters. The dossier should also include two seconding letters, one of which must be from a current SMM member. Signed-in SMM members can search for all current members via the SMM Member Directory. Each seconding letter can be no longer than one page (12 pt font).

(3) Complete curriculum vitae of the nominee. The format and length of this document is unrestricted, as we are encouraging nominations of individuals from broadly different backgrounds and the standard CV formats across fields are likely different. Note that only text should be submitted as part of the CV. If audio or video files are relevant provide a link in the documents submitted.

(4) Proposed maximum 20-word citation for the Fellow (e.g., Kenneth S. Norris – for efforts to found the Society and contributions to the process of dolphin echolocation and hearing).

All materials must be uploaded here: https://marinemammalscience.org/about-us/fellows-program/fellows-program-nomination/

DOSSIER REVIEW PROCESS
The dossiers will be received by the committee Co-chairs and the SMM Members-at-Large.

Identifying information about the nominator and seconders will be redacted from each dossier to ensure a blind review. The Fellows Committees will be Co-Chaired by the Members-at-Large, who will form a committee of seven members holding Fellow status, and at least one contributing, but not voting student member, with attention paid to diversity of representation. Members will serve staggered, four-year terms. Fellows Committee members may not submit nominations. For more information about the Fellows Committee, please see the General Operating Policies of our SMM governing documents.

QUESTIONS
If you have any questions about the nomination process, please reach out to the Co-Chairs of the Fellows Committee, our Members-at-Large:
Cindy Peter and Dipani Sutaria (mal@marinemammalscience.org)
For any technical questions regarding the online application, please email admin@marinemammalscience.org.

Thank you,
Members-at-Large 2023
Society of Marine Mammalogy

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.

Louis M. Herman Research Scholarship: Open for Proposals

by

Louis M. Herman, Ph.D. and Emeritus Professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA, was a pioneer and trailblazer in research on dolphin sensory perception and cognition, and humpback whale behavioural ecology. Dr. Herman’s family, colleagues, and friends established the Louis M. Herman Research Scholarship in 2017 to honor his legacy by promoting the type of research that was the focus of his ground-breaking studies. The Scholarship is given every two years and is open for application today (November 27 2023). The 2024 award will be for USD $6,000. Eligibility criteria and the application process is available here  

 

Please direct any enquiries to the Awards and Scholarship Sub-Committee (awardschair@marinemammalscience.org)

Nominate a SMM Member to be a Fellow for the Class of 2023

by

Announcement and Date extension

NOMINATE A FELLOW MEMBER
In 2019, the members of the Society for Marine Mammalogy (SMM) voted to establish a Fellows Membership Category. We are pleased to announce our Society’s second call for nominations of Fellow Members.

The SMM Constitution identifies a ‘Fellow’ as a member who is being recognized by the Society and its membership as having “rendered conspicuous service or made truly notable contributions to the advancement and diffusion of the knowledge of marine mammal science or the fostering of its practical applications through conservation of marine mammals. Payment of dues to the Society by the Fellow would remain the same as for a normal Full member.”

Nominations are Open.
We are pleased to announce that the nomination period is extended until 15 January 2024. So please come nominate a Fellow for the Society.

ELIGIBILITY
Any current Full member of the SMM after being a Full member for a minimum of five years is eligible. These five years do not have to be contiguous. Please confirm with the nominee that they meet the five-year eligibility criterion prior to submission.

Note: the current members of the SMM Board (which includes elected officers and committee chairs) are not eligible for consideration for Fellows status.

HOW TO NOMINATE
If you are a current SMM member, you may nominate an eligible SMM member as a Fellow. We ask that you submit a complete dossier, described in detail below, to the Fellows Nomination web page by 15 January 2024. The dossier must be uploaded to the Fellows Nomination web page as a single .pdf document.

Each dossier shall include the following elements.

(1) Letter of Nomination. This letter should provide insight into a nominee’s service, notable contributions to the advancement and diffusion of the knowledge of marine mammal science, or the fostering of its practical applications through the conservation of marine mammals. The nominating letter can be no longer than one page (12 pt font).
The Committee will consider the following factors:

  1. service to the Society;
  2. contributions to marine mammal science including activities such as publications and presentations, field work, research and development, or administrative and logistical support; or
  3. contributions to the teaching or dissemination of knowledge of marine mammal science and conservation. Due to the diversity of disciplines and activities of The Society for Marine Mammalogy members, the relative importance of these factors will differ from candidate to candidate. The Fellow candidate would be expected to be exemplary in, and have made substantial contributions to, at least one of these factors (e.g. be in the top 10% of the membership).

(2) Seconding letters. The dossier should also include two seconding letters, one of which must be from a current SMM member. Signed-in SMM members can search for all current members via the SMM Member Directory. Each seconding letter can be no longer than one page (12 pt font).

(3) Complete curriculum vitae of the nominee. The format and length of this document is unrestricted, as we are encouraging nominations of individuals from broadly different backgrounds and the standard CV formats across fields are likely different. Note that only text should be submitted as part of the CV. If audio or video files are relevant provide a link in the documents submitted.

(4) Proposed maximum 20-word citation for the Fellow (e.g., Kenneth S. Norris – for efforts to found the Society and contributions to the process of dolphin echolocation and hearing).

All materials must be uploaded here: https://marinemammalscience.org/about-us/fellows-program/fellows-program-nomination/

DOSSIER REVIEW PROCESS
The dossiers will be received by the committee Co-chairs and the SMM Members-at-Large.

Identifying information about the nominator and seconders will be redacted from each dossier to ensure a blind review. The Fellows Committees will be Co-Chaired by the Members-at-Large, who will form a committee of seven members holding Fellow status, and at least one contributing, but not voting student member, with attention paid to diversity of representation. Members will serve staggered, four-year terms. Fellows Committee members may not submit nominations. For more information about the Fellows Committee, please see the General Operating Policies of our SMM governing documents.

QUESTIONS
If you have any questions about the nomination process, please reach out to the Co-Chairs of the Fellows Committee, our Members-at-Large:
Cindy Peter and Dipani Sutaria (mal@marinemammalscience.org)
For any technical questions regarding the online application, please email admin@marinemammalscience.org.

Thank you,
Members-at-Large 2023
Society of Marine Mammalogy

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.

Submit your nominations for the 2023 SMM Fellows

by

The SMM Fellows Program is now accepting nominations. From our Constitution, a Fellow is a member who is being recognized by the Society and its membership as having “rendered conspicuous service or made truly notable contributions to the advancement and diffusion of the knowledge of marine mammal science or the fostering of its practical applications through conservation of marine mammals”. A nomination for advancement to Fellow is appropriate for any current Full member of the SMM after that individual has been a Full member for a minimum of five years.

If you are a current SMM member, you may nominate an eligible SMM member as a Fellow. We ask that you submit a complete dossier, described in detail below, to the Fellows Nomination web page by 18 November 2023. The dossier must be uploaded to the Fellows Nomination web page as a single .pdf document.

If you have any questions about the nomination process, please reach out to the Co-Chairs of the Fellows Committee, our Members-at-Large:

Cindy Peter and Dipani Sutaria (fellows@marinemammalscience.org)

For any technical questions regarding the online application, please email admin@marinemammalscience.org.

Thank you in advance for your nominations!

Best regards,

Cindy Peter and Dipani Sutaria

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