Baleen whale ecology in arctic and subarctic seas in an era of rapid habitat alteration

Dolphins of the genus Stenella occur in pelagic waters of both tropical and warm-temperate oceans. Three species, the Atlantic spotted dolphin (Stenella frontalis), the pantropical spotted dolphin (S. attenuata), and the spinner dolphin (S. longirostris) are abundant worldwide, but in the Caribbean Basin they have been poorly studied and information on their distribution patterns is scarce. Specifically, in Colombia’s remote Seaflower Biosphere Reserve (SFBR) S. attenuata has been reported occasionally, but S. frontalis and S. longirostris have never been recorded before. To address this information gap, an ecological niche modeling approach was used to determine the potential distribution patterns of these three dolphin species in the region. Records of these species for the Caribbean Basin were compiled, including both published and unpublished data. Environmental information, including bathymetry, bathymetric slope, distance to shore, sea surface temperature, sea surface salinity, and chlorophyll-a concentration was gathered from public databases (MARSPEC and Bio-ORACLE) in raster format. The maximum entropy algorithm (Maxent) for modeling species’ geographic distributions with presence-only data was used. After filtering the data, 210 records of S. attenuata, 204 of S. frontalis, and 80 of S. longirostris were used to run models. The best configuration for each model was chosen based on the ΔAICc criterion. For all three species, the final ecological niche models returned AUC test values higher than 0.8, indicating satisfactory model performance. The resulting potential distribution maps suggested that areas closest to continental shorelines of the Caribbean Basin and surrounding islands had the highest environmental suitability for all species (>70%). All models reported high environmental suitability for S. attenuata and S. longirostris in the SFBR, mainly in the southernmost part surrounding San Andres and Providence Archipelago. Assessment of niche overlap from the predictions of species distributions using the similarity statistic and pairwise map overlap indicated that S. frontalis and S. longirostris had niches slightly more similar in comparison to S. attenuata. As this was a first effort to fill a gap in our understanding of the distribution of species in the genus Stenella in the Caribbean Basin, further studies are necessary using both niche modeling and biological/ecological approaches.

/pdf/ecological-niche-modeling-of-three-species-of-stenella-2aqalwcabc.pdf

Ecological Niche Modeling of Three Species of Stenella Dolphins in the Caribbean Basin, With Application to the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve

Using modelled prey to predict the distribution of a highly mobile marine mammal

Implications of movement for species distribution models - Rethinking environmental data tools.

: Six baleen whale species occur off eastern Canada, but little is known of their year-round occurrence across this large region. This complicates identifying areas that are important to them and may require critical habitat designation, especially for those species considered at risk. This is particularly true between fall and spring because of a lack of visual survey effort. The main objective of this paper is to provide a year-round and pluriannual description of the minimum acoustic occurrence of baleen whales, particularly blue Balaenoptera musculus , fin B. physalus , and humpback whales Megaptera novaeangliae . We deployed 25 acoustic recorders off eastern Canada between May 2015 and November 2017, and the data were analyzed using a combination of automated detectors and manual validation to identify vocalizations produced by these species. Blue, fin, and humpback whales occurred off eastern Canada year-round, a finding which con-trasts the traditional seasonal latitude migration narrative for these species. The Scotian Shelf region and Flemish Pass−Orphan Basin areas seem particularly important for these animals and should be the focus of future research. Sei B. borealis , minke B. acutorostrata , and North Atlantic right whale Eubalaena glacialis vocalizations also occurred in the data but were not adequately captured by the adopted methodology. Coarse patterns of occurrence are presented for these species as a foundation for more detailed analyses. This study is the first to cover eastern Canadian waters for an extended continuous period and provides a baseline against which future changes can be assessed.

/pdf/acoustic-occurrence-of-baleen-whales-particularly-blue-fin-2d20vic2.pdf

Acoustic occurrence of baleen whales, particularly blue, fin, and humpback whales, off eastern Canada, 2015–2017

Using long-term data from government, non-government, academic, and industry sources, we developed species distribution models (SDMs) to predict priority areas in which to target and enhance blue whale Balaenoptera musculus and northern bottlenose whale Hyperoodon ampullatus monitoring efforts in eastern Canada. Priority areas for blue whales were located primarily on the Scotian Shelf and along the south shelf break in waters off Newfoundland. Priority areas for northern bottlenose whales were identified primarily in areas along the edges of the eastern Scotian Shelf and the Newfoundland and Labrador Shelves, in submarine canyons, and deep basins. The SDM results and the tools presented in this study indicate that there are few conservation areas in eastern Canada that currently protect whales at risk, and that priority areas for blue and northern bottlenose whales overlap with regions where noise-producing activities (shipping and seismic exploration) occur. This study also highlighted large gaps in the cetacean data related to human activities (e.g. seismic survey lines are outdated and recent information from the past 5 to 10 yr is not available). The SDM approach developed in this study can be used as an iterative, adaptive process by including updated data as it becomes available, further refining and validating the SDM results and thereby improve our understanding of the distribution of cetaceans and noiseproducing activities in eastern Canada.

/pdf/predicted-distribution-of-whales-at-risk-identifying-1gc7704mon.pdf

Predicted distribution of whales at risk: identifying priority areas to enhance cetacean monitoring in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean

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Predicted distribution of whales at risk: identifying priority areas to enhance cetacean monitoring in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean