Most humpback whale Megaptera novaeangliae populations partition their time between prey-rich feeding and prey-deficient breeding/calving regions. How these whales feed and optimize the consumption of prey resources prior to long-distance migrations and fasting is largely unknown. We deployed multi-sensor tags on humpback whales around the western Antarctic Peninsula to describe their daily activity patterns late in the feeding season to test the hypothesis that feeding behavior varies over the diel cycle so as to maximize energy intake and limit energy expenditure. Dives were assigned to a behavioral state (feeding, resting, traveling, exploring) to determine hourly rates and to build an ethogram of activity patterns. Our results show a distinct diel pattern of whales feeding exclusively at night. Feeding depth was deeper around sunrise/sunset and shallower (~50 m) at night, consistent with diel vertical prey movement. Shallow feeding dives typically contained a single feeding lunge, a strategy known to increase feeding efficiency and maximize intake rates by maintaining proximity to the surface and reducing the energetic costs of deep diving. The lack of feeding during daytime may indicate prey being too deep for efficient foraging. Our results add information where currently there is a paucity of data describing how baleen whales optimize feeding behavior, specifically in relation to prey distribution and movement, to fuel their extraordinary energetic requirements necessary for growth, migration, and reproduction. Understanding behavioral patterns and predator/prey dynamics in rapidly changing marine environments, like the Antarctic Peninsula, is critical for understanding how these changes will affect ecosystem structure and function.

Nonlinear phenomena or nonlinearities in animal vocalizations include features such as subharmonics, deterministic chaos, biphonation, and frequency jumps that until recently were generally ignored in acoustic analyses. Recent documentation of these phenomena in several species suggests that they may play a communicative role, though the exact function is still under investigation. Here, qualitative descriptions and quantitative analyses of nonlinearities in the vocalizations of killer whales (Orcinus orca) and North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) are provided. All four nonlinear features were present in both species, with at least one feature occurring in 92.4% of killer and 65.7% of right whale vocalizations analyzed. Occurrence of biphonation varied the most between species, being present in 89.0% of killer whale vocalizations and only 20.4% of right whale vocalizations. Because deterministic chaos is qualitatively and quantitatively different than random or Gaussian noise, a program (TISEAN) designed specifically to identify deterministic chaos to confirm the presence of this nonlinearity was used. All segments tested in this software indicate that both species do indeed exhibit deterministic chaos. The results of this study provide confirmation that such features are common in the vocalizations of cetacean species and lay the groundwork for future studies.

A capture-recapture survey of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) was conducted in the sounds, estuaries and near-shore waters of North Carolina during July 2006, using photographic identification techniques; 291 dolphins were identified from distinctive nicks and notches on their dorsal fins. The results of our photographic analyses were applied to several capture-recapture models. The best estimate of the number of bottlenose dolphins present in estuarine waters of North Carolina during July 2006 was 813 with a 95% Confidence Interval of 483–1,142. Previously in July 2000, 1,033 (95% CI: 860-1,266) dolphins were estimated to be present in the estuaries of North Carolina. When the analysis from the 2006 surveys was expanded to include adjacent coastal waters, then the estimate of abundance increased to 1,138. Therefore, the abundance of dolphins in this area remained relatively stable between the two studies. Most dolphins were found in the northern part of the study area and there was very little exchange between the northern and southern areas of the state. The recapture data was also used to identify a spatial boundary between two putative management units that may be useful for future stock delineations. Additionally, an unexpected potential bias was introduced with the transition from slide film to digital media in the evaluation of the distinctiveness scoring.

Air-breathing marine animals face a complex set of physical challenges associated with diving that affect the decisions of how to optimize feeding. Baleen whales (Mysticeti) have evolved bulk-filter feeding mechanisms to efficiently feed on dense prey patches. Baleen whales are central place foragers where oxygen at the surface represents the central place and depth acts as the distance to prey. Although hypothesized that baleen whales will target the densest prey patches anywhere in the water column, how depth and density interact to influence foraging behaviour is poorly understood. We used multi-sensor archival tags and active acoustics to quantify Antarctic humpback whale foraging behaviour relative to prey. Our analyses reveal multi-stage foraging decisions driven by both krill depth and density. During daylight hours when whales did not feed, krill were found in deep high-density patches. As krill migrated vertically into larger and less dense patches near the surface, whales began to forage. During foraging bouts, we found that feeding rates (number of feeding lunges per hour) were greatest when prey was shallowest, and feeding rates decreased with increasing dive depth. This strategy is consistent with previous models of how air-breathing diving animals optimize foraging efficiency. Thus, humpback whales forage mainly when prey is more broadly distributed and shallower, presumably to minimize diving and searching costs and to increase feeding rates overall and thus foraging efficiency. Using direct measurements of feeding behaviour from animal-borne tags and prey availability from echosounders, our study demonstrates a multi-stage foraging process in a central place forager that we suggest acts to optimize overall efficiency by maximizing net energy gain over time. These data reveal a previously unrecognized level of complexity in predator–prey interactions and underscores the need to simultaneously measure prey distribution in marine central place forager studies.