Are Gray Whales Hitting “K” Hard?

Moore, Sue E.; Urbán, R Jorge; Perryman, Wayne L.; Gulland, Frances M. D.; Pérez-Cortés, M Héctor; Wade, Paul R.; Rojas‐Bracho, Lorenzo; Rowles, Teri

doi:10.1111/j.1748-7692.2001.tb01310.x

Cited by 69 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…For cetacean species in the ENP, the most affected species are large Balaenoptera spp., Megaptera and Eubalaena japonica (Clapham et al 1999) (see also Appendix 4). It is unclear if abundances of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) have recovered to pre-whaling numbers (Clapham et al 1999), but gray whales appear to have recovered (Moore et al 2001). Interestingly, recent studies suggest that the large discrepancy between the stable, current population size and historical estimates of gray whales reflects fundamental changes in the function of ENP ocean ecosystems (Alter et al 2007).…”

Section: Further Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, the impact of the 1999-2000 did not fundamentally alter the abundances recorded in live survey and stranding record data used in this study : Table 2). More broadly, Rugh et al (2005) and Swartz et al (2006) have indicated that the estimated population of ENP gray whales dropped from about 30,000 individuals in the 1990s to a more or less stable 20,000 individuals since 2001(Moore et al 2001Wade 2002). Given these details, a lower bound of 18,000 individuals is not unreasonable.…”

Section: Appendixmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Carcasses on the coastline: measuring the ecological fidelity of the cetacean stranding record in the eastern North Pacific Ocean

Pyenson¹

2010

Paleobiology

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Abstract.-To understand how well fossil assemblages represent original communities, paleoecologists seek comparisons between death assemblages and their source communities. These comparisons have traditionally used nearshore, marine invertebrate assemblages for their logistical ease, high abundance, and comparable census data from living communities. For large marine vertebrates, like cetaceans, measuring their diversity in ocean ecosystems is difficult and expensive. Cetaceans, however, often beach or strand themselves along the coast, and archived data on stranded cetaceans have been recorded, in some areas, over several decades. If the stranding record is interpreted as a death assemblage, then the stranding record may represent a viable alternative for measuring diversity in living communities on directly adjacent coastlines. This study assessed the fidelity of the cetacean stranding record in the eastern North Pacific Ocean. The living community in this region has been studied for over 100 years and, recently, extensive and systematic live transect surveys using ship-based observing platforms have produced a valuable source of live diversity data. Over this same period, the U.S. Marine Mammal Stranding Program has collected and archived a record of cetacean strandings along the U.S. Pacific coastline, providing an ideal death assemblage for comparison. Using fidelity metrics commonly used in marine invertebrate taphonomy, I determined that the stranding record samples the living cetacean community with high fidelity, across fine and coarse taxonomic ranks, and at large geographic scales (.1000 km of coastline). The stranding record is also richer than the live surveys, with live-dead ratios between 1.1 and 1.3. The stranding record recovers similar rank-order relative abundances as live surveys, with statistical significance. Also, I applied sample-based rarefaction methods to generate collector's curves for strandings along the U.S. Pacific Coast to better evaluate the spatiotemporal characteristics of the stranding record. Results indicate that saturation (i.e., sampling .95% assemblage) at species, genus, and family levels occurs in less than five years of sampling, with families accumulating faster than species, and larger geographic regions (i.e., longer coastlines) accumulating taxa the most rapidly. The high fidelity of the stranding record, measured both in richness and by ranked relative abundance, implies that ecological structure from living cetacean communities is recorded in the death assemblage, a finding that parallels marine invertebrate assemblages, though at far larger spatial scales. These results have implications for studying cetacean ecology in both modern and ancient environments: first, these results imply that the stranding record, over sufficiently long time intervals, yields a richer assemblage than using linetransect methods, and faithfully records aspects of community structure; and second, these results imply that geochronologically well-constrained fossil cetacean assemblages ...

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Section: Further Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Appendixmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carcasses on the coastline: measuring the ecological fidelity of the cetacean stranding record in the eastern North Pacific Ocean

Pyenson¹

2010

Paleobiology

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“…In fact, it is expected that a population close to or at the carrying capacity of the environment will be more susceptible to fluctuations in the environment (Moore et al 2001). The recent correlation between gray whale calf production and environmental conditions in the Bering Sea may be an example of this.…”

Section: Status Of Stockmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…37). Visibly emaciated whales (LeBoeuf et al 2000;Moore et al 2001) suggest a decline in food resources, perhaps associated with unusually high sea temperatures in 1997 (Minobe 2002). Several factors since this mortality event suggest that the high mortality rate was a short-term, acute event and not a chronic situation or trend: 1) counts of stranded dead gray whales dropped to levels below those seen prior to this event, 2) in 2001 living whales no longer appeared to be emaciated, and 3) calf counts in 2001/02, a year after the event ended, were similar to averages for previous years (W. Perryman, NMFS-SWFSC, pers.…”

Section: Population Sizementioning

confidence: 99%

Observations of Humpback Whales, Megaptera novaeangliae, in the Beaufort Sea, Alaska

Hashagen

Green

Adams³

2009

Northwestern Naturalist

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“…(Shelden & Laake 2002, Rugh et al 2005. Current estimates hover around 20 000 ind., and there are even some suggestions that the population has reached carrying capacity (Moore et al 2001, Wade 2002, Rugh et al 2005, but see Alter et al 2007 for an alternative perspective).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of population substructure in relation to summer feeding ground use in the eastern North Pacific gray whale

Frasier¹,

Koroscil²,

White³

et al. 2011

Endang. Species. Res.

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The eastern North Pacific gray whale Eschrichtius robustus was removed from the US Endangered Species List in 1994, and since then aboriginal groups in Washington (USA) and British Columbia (Canada) have discussed the resumption of traditional whaling. In particular, the Makah are pursuing legal permission to resume their hunt. Although the majority of whales in this population migrate to summer feeding grounds in the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas, a small number of individuals (~200) spend the summers feeding in the waters ranging from northern California to southeast Alaska. The relationship of these 'southern feeding group' whales to the rest of the population is unknown. This information is key to making appropriate management decisions, because these whales inhabit the waters directly adjacent to the aboriginal communities interested in resuming whaling. We compared mitochondrial sequence data from 40 southern feeding group individuals to sequences from 105 individuals representing the larger population. We found significant differences in haplotype frequencies between the 2 groups, with an estimated long-term rate of exchange between the groups being <<1%. Moreover, estimates of Θ (N e µ for mtDNA data, i.e. the probability of a mutation occurring within the population in each generation) were significantly different between the 2 groups, indicating that the maternal lineages of the southern feeding group represent a distinct seasonal subpopulation. Combined, these data show that the southern feeding group of gray whales qualifies as a separate management unit, which should be considered when making conservation decisions.

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Are Gray Whales Hitting “K” Hard?

Cited by 69 publications

References 6 publications

Carcasses on the coastline: measuring the ecological fidelity of the cetacean stranding record in the eastern North Pacific Ocean

Carcasses on the coastline: measuring the ecological fidelity of the cetacean stranding record in the eastern North Pacific Ocean

Observations of Humpback Whales, Megaptera novaeangliae, in the Beaufort Sea, Alaska

Assessment of population substructure in relation to summer feeding ground use in the eastern North Pacific gray whale

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