Marine Mammal Ecology - Science topic

Hello everyone,

On the 9th of November I believe I was lucky enough to observe two sub-adult Blue Whale’s (Balaenoptera musculus) in the North East Atlantic off the coast of the United Kingdom; however, I am questioning my identification due to the odd location and shallow water ca. 70m.

The key identifying features are as follows; large baleen whale likely sub-adult at ca. 20-25m length; tall columnar blow ca. 6-8m; distinctive miniature dorsal fin located towards posterior; mottled grey colouration; large blow hole splash guards; very thick caudal peduncle; typical slow surface roll with long back only exposing dorsal fin at the very end of roll arching tail stock prior to longer dives. Please take a look at the attached photos and let me know your thoughts.

Any help would be greeted with the utmost appreciation.

All the very best,

Edward Lavallin

I am looking for incidents of this behavior in the literature, or from government agency reports. Links and citations would be most helpful.

Dear all,

I am reviewing available scientific literature in search of studies detailing energetic and resource requirements for sperm whales in particular tidal volumes, vital capacity (Stahl 1976) and oxygen extraction efficiency among the others. From my dataset, I can easily obtain individual body-length and derive theoretical animal mass and surface area. Together with other data collected in the field I am trying to look into relations between field metabolic rate, body characteristics and energetic requirements for sperm whale. While I can find several references for many Mysticete species I haven’t found so far any relevant paper on sperm whale describing the above mentioned parameters. Do you have any suggestion on this matter?

Cheers,

N

I'm working with data of a long term study population but I'm having trouble finding information of similar projects in other populatons of otariids. I'm looking for information of how individuals change foraging and reproductive behaviour on a monitored cohort. 

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to add latitude as a variable in my marine mammal modelling approach and I have a doubt. Someone has included this variable? could explain me if your include as categorical or continuos variable ? are you make some of particular transformation?

Thanks in advance guys!!

Ricardo

I've read that Orca whales hunt together as a unit. It's very interesting and I want to know more about the dynamics of their hunting strategy and how they make sure that even the younger members of the pod have a role in acquiring their prey.

Should i use dBPeak values to determine underwater noise mitigation (i.e., safety zones) instead of dBrms even though the NMFS interim sound thresholds for marine mammals uses dBrms? As thresholds are considered absolute values we should not exceed (e.g., to avoid TTS and PTS), should we monitor for dBPeak values instead of dBrms? This is in relation to impulsive sound rather than continuous sounds.

I'm looking for references to vocalizations of Stenella attenuata. If anyone has any references, please let me know!

Does anyone know how manatees or dugongs dung look like?

I found coprolite in the silt of late Miocene (Tortonian 8 million years ago), in the Southern Piedmont (Italy), where two whales have already been found (Balenopteridae). The shape of the section is particular: approximately rhomboid. A marine animal which can be attributed? Thank you for answers and bibliographical suggestions.

Do they use some type of acoustic depth finder to swim along a coast line? Is there any research that says they can sense echoes bounced off the bottom in order to determine depth?

I am currently writing a paper on plastic ingestion and i failed to  sketch the GI tract of the specimen during the necropsy.

This question pertains to; animal dialects, and social (cultural) transmission of vocal learning.  Examples can be about any mammalian species.

Apparently washed up on a beach in Iluka, NSW, Australia.

PCFG has feeding grounds (based on photo identification) from northern California to below the Aleutian Islands and has a population of about 200 whales.

The larger eastern gray whale population feeds in the Chuckchi, Bering and Beaufort Seas and has a population of around 19,000 whales.

mtDNA has shown a significant difference between the PCFG and the larger population.  Nuclear DNA shows no statistical difference.  The differentiation in DNA is the same in each group, although you would expect the differentiation to be different when comparing a population of 19,000 individuals compared to 200 individuals. 

How many sub species and hybrids of blue whale are found? And what are the possible mating species with blue whale? 

Can any body have the morphometry difference for these sub species and hybrids of blue whale?

I'm modeling a disease onset and extent thanks to GLMM. I want to look for factors influencing the onset (0/1) and extent (lesion volume). My data set is made of  observations with individuals bserved more than once (around 15% are recapture). Regressors available are continuous variable (body length, environment temperature, delay since first observation), and Bernouilli variable (presence/absence of parasites, presence/absence of an ID tag, etc.). I consider disease onset and extent separately since onset and spread could be influenced by distinct factors. Observation of disease is made by field technicians that can miss the lesion when small (zero inflated). Data are time series with temporal autocorrelation. I started with GLMM PQL including random effect (1/IndividualID) and temporal autocorrelation structure. On the one hand, I can run a lesion presence absence response with binomial distribution through glmmPQL including temporal autocorrelation but Zero inflated (ZI) require ADMB. So I'm looking for a ADMB code including ZI binomial and temporal autocorrelation. On the other hand, I tried to run a glmmPQL for the lesion volume response, gamma distributed, including random effect (1/individual ID) with temporal autocorrelation, but the glmmPQL seems to fail in adjusting the gamma. So I'm looking for another solution: ADMB seems to be the gold standard again and i'm looking for a second code for gamma distributed response, including temporal autocorrelation, random effect (1/ID) and I also may add a zero truncated gamma instead of the gamma to account for the fact that small lesions could be missed by field observers. I hope it is clear enough and thanks to everyone who could help!

Please, I wonder if there are commercially available antibodies and conjugates for the determination of CD4 / CD8 for turtles.

I have a sample group of 160 deceased whales with diseases I categorized numerically ranging from 1-11 (example: 1-cancer, 2-respiratory, 3-improper care, etc.) I attached a picture of the counts for each disease I had tested. Respiratory, which is actually listed at the number 2 COD (cause of death) shows to be the most frequent cause of death. My other hypotheses were that there is a specific gender that is more effected, or the origin (wild or raised captive) has an effect. 

I can clearly see that one of the diseases is occurring more frequently, but I do not know how to put it statistically. I ran chi-square cross tabs on the cause of death versus the facility size, the sex, as well as the origin. I don't know what to make of it.  

Here's a link to the data I am using

I have run across a number of anecdotes of this growth affecting some Tursiops aduncus bottlenose in/around the Broadwater estuary on the Gold Coast, Australia, around 10-15 years ago (2000-2005). No-one has been able to provide me with pictures. The growth protruding from their mouth made it impossible to accept food from boaters who tried to provision them. Not surprisingly, they disappeared fairly quickly.

I've found one passing reference to a similar condition but the study simply made mention of a male, on its own, with the growth, and didn't study or investigate further.

I'd be interested of any other sightings of such a condition, any thoughts on what it might be, or any photos.

I am interested in finding information or examples of best management practices for marine keystone species (not including forage fish).

Thanks.

I am extracting hormones from sea lion lipids and most of my samples have solids precipitating out, which I haven't seen with dolphins. I'm wondering if there is some property of sea lion fat that would cause this? I haven't come across a paper that explains what I am seeing. Thanks!

I have attached the picture of the humpback dolphin taken past November in the Persian Gulf as part of my research there. I am not really sure if this type of mark could be caused by a propeller as it looks like that there are marks on the body. Has someone observed something similar in other dolphins?

I have attached the picture of the humpback dolphin taken past November in the Persian Gulf as part of my research there. I am not really sure if this type of mark could be caused by a entanglement in a gillnet. Has someone observed something similar in other cetaceans?

East Pacifdic,West Pacific,Southwest Atlantic and Southwest indian ocean subpopulaton were listed as as Critically endangered,Northwest Atlantic leatherbacks were listed as least concern & northwest indian ocean & southeast Atlantic subpopulation were listed as data deficient.

I observed horseflies (Tabaniidae) biting bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in a caribbean mangrove area. I can't find reports on bloodsucking insects predating on completely aquatic mammals (dolphins, whales, manatees). Does anyone have any information/paper about the subject?

I'm studying spinner dolphins' behavior. Is it by dividing the duration period of one behavioral state? Thanks in advance.

Am devising a campaign for project, any extra info would be greatly appreciated, especially surrounding their dietary requirements/habits and techniques used to assess this. Thank you

I was wondering if anyone had any information on barnacles (Coronulids and/or goose barnacles) on humpback whales in the Persian/Arabian Gulf? In fact anything on humpbacks from that part of the world would be useful to know.

I am working on a humpback whale that we excavated in Abu Dhabi (ca 5000 years old) and which has associated barnacles. However, there does not appear to be much known about these whales in the Gulf today. If you know anything about the diatoms associated with whales in this region that would also be of interest.

Because until recently many scientist have not fully appreciated how widespread and important fish sounds are in the marine soundscape, I wonder if sounds produced by fishes that are being preyed upon by cetaceans could be mistaken for cetacean sounds in some, probably rare, cases.  Fish often only make sounds under particular conditions, such as when attacked by a predator, so you would only hear that sound in that circumstance, hence the possibility of mistaken identification.  To be shore most fish sounds have much more limited detection ranges than cetaceans.  But shouldn't scientists reporting new sounds at least consider the possibility?

Cetacean stranding.

I would like to look into the relationship between primary productivity and top predator occurrences. What are the possible ways to collect this information? I would also like to collect the environmental information. Looking for collaborations.

I am gathering as much information as I can on this topic, but would be nice to get some feedback.

I would like to know if there had been a direct correlation with the songs of the whales and their social relationships (e.g. mating systems, predation and defense patterns).

Moreover, the role of their singing in the bigger picture of migration and evolution. I want to know the efficiency of this type of communication and if it has helped in the keeping their local populations stable.