Historic and current habitat use by North Pacific right whales <i>Eubalaena japonica</i> in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska

Shelden, Kim E. W.; Moore, Sue E.; Waite, Janice M.; Wade, Paul R.; Rugh, David J.

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2907.2005.00065.x

Cited by 37 publications

(61 citation statements)

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“…North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) teeter on the brink of extinction, with ,300 individuals remaining (Kraus et al 2005). In the North Pacific Ocean, the distributions of Eubalaena and Balaena rarely overlap (Reeves et al 2002), although the range of North Pacific right whales (Eubalaena japonica) has been dramatically reduced by nineteenth-century whaling, and the population does not seem to have recovered (Brownell et al 2001;Shelden et al 2005). In a major contribution, Brownell et al (2001) reviewed all reported sightings and strandings of E. japonica known at that time.…”

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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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: 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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Section: Thule Origins Ice-edge Hunting and Whalingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While some whales, including humpback (Megaptera movaeangliae), North Pacific right whale (Eubalaena japonica), fin (Balaenoptera physalus) and gray whale, migrate in from the North Pacific in spring to feed in the Bering Sea over the summer and autumn, other cetaceans appear to be resident, including bowhead, beluga, Dall's porpoise (Phocoenoides dalli), harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) and Baird's beaked whale (Berardius bairdii) (Moore et al 2002;Reeves et al 2002;Sheldon et al 2005;Zerbini et al 2006). Bowhead, gray whale and beluga move beyond the Bering Sea into the productive waters of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas (Braham et al 1984;O'Corry-Crow et al 1997;Moore et al 2000Moore et al , 2002Moore et al , 2003Braham 2003;Dixon 2003).…”

Section: Bering Sea and Sea Icementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moore et al 2002;Sinclair et al 2005), harbour porpoise is not only strongly represented in the Amaknak Bridge assemblage, but comprises a surprisingly high proportion of the NISP (10%, 578/5947), with all age classes (including newborns and mature adults) represented. In contrast, although both gray whale and the smaller minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) are both fairly common during summer in the Bering Sea today (Moore et al 2002;Sinclair et al 2005;Zerbini et al 2006), none have yet been positively identified from Neoglacial-age sites on Unalaska.It is not surprising, however, that both right and fin whales are represented in the Amaknak Bridge assemblage, since the preferred summer habitat for both species in the Bering Sea is the shelf region just north of Unalaska (Stewart et al 1987;Moore et al 2002;Sheldon et al 2005;Zerbini et al 2006). Similarly, the preferred habitat for Baird's beaked whale (the largest of the beaked whale family, reaching 12.8 m) is the shelf slope (Stewart et al 1987;Moore et al 2002;Reeves et al 2002); a portion of this habitat lies adjacent to Unalaska, suggesting this species may have been relatively common in the area prehistorically.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…At the height of the Neoglacial -with sea ice pressing down from the north virtually every spring -very large numbers of ringed seal were available for hunting at the edge of the ice, as were bearded seals and the occasional walrus (as reflected by the faunal component at Amaknak Bridge in Table 1). Extensive sea ice to the east of Unalaska (along the Bristol Bay coast of the Alaska Peninsula and Unimak Island, Figure 1) would have blocked one of the main passages into the Bering Sea used by modern cetaceans (Moore et al 2002;Ladd et al 2005;Sheldon et al 2005;Sinclair et al 2005;Zerbini et al 2006), forcing them to enter the Bering Sea west of Unalaska, where an eastward migration route would take all animals directly past the site location.Today, spring migrating whales in the northern portion of the Bering Sea travel in the narrow strip of open water that lies between the shore and wind-driven sea ice, where they are far easier to hunt than autumn whales in relatively ice-free open water: modern Bering Strait whalers still find that spring whaling is the most successful (Bogoslovskaya 2003;Braham 2003;Jolles 2003). Along this moving edge of offshore sea ice, relatively large numbers of seals are also available during the spring and early summer (Nelson 1969).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Islands of Inquiry: Colonisation, seafaring and the archaeology of maritime landscapes (TA29) : Colonisation, seafaring and the archaeology of maritime landscapes

Clark¹,

Leach²,

O’Connor³

2008

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terra australis 29Terra Australis reports the results of archaeological and related research within the south and east of Asia, though mainly Australia, New Guinea and island Melanesia -lands that remained terra australis incognita to generations of prehistorians. Its subject is the settlement of the diverse environments in this isolated quarter of the globe by peoples who have maintained their discrete and traditional ways of life into the recent recorded or remembered past and at times into the observable present.Since the beginning of the series, the basic colour on the spine and cover has distinguished the regional distribution of topics as follows: ochre for Australia, green for New Guinea, red for South-East Asia and blue for the Pacific Islands. From 2001, issues with a gold spine will include conference proceedings, edited papers and monographs which in topic or desired format do not fit easily within the original arrangements. All volumes are numbered within the same series. List of volumes in Terra AustralisVolume 1: Burrill Lake and Currarong: Coastal Sites in Southern New South Wales. R.J. Lampert (1971) Volume 2: Ol Tumbuna: Archaeological Excavations in the Eastern Central Highlands, Papua New Guinea. J.P. White (1972) Volume 3 Copyright of the text remains with the contributors/authors, 2008. This book is copyright in all countries subscribing to the Berne convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher. ISLANDS OF INQUIRY Papers in honour of Atholl Anderson'Aye,' said the Captain, reverentially; 'it's a almighty element. There's wonders in the deep, my pretty. Think on it when the winds is roaring and the waves is rowling. Think on it when the stormy nights is so pitch dark,' said the Captain, solemnly holding up his hook, 'as you can't see your hand afore you, excepting when the wiwid lightning reweals the same; and when you drive, drive, drive through the storm and dark, as if you was a driving, head on, to the world without end,'Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son (1848:252). Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard terra australis 29 terra australis 29 PrefaceThe impetus for this volume is the pending retirement of Professor Atholl Anderson from the Department of Archaeology and Natural History in the Australian National University in June 2008, after a distinguished and brilliant career in academic archaeology. In geographic range, Atholl's field research has extended over large swathes of the Pacific Ocean, from the west coast of South America to Western Micronesia, to Island Southeast Asia, and west to the Indian Ocean. Few prehistorians of Oceania have seen as much of their subject matter at such close quarters. The variety and span of his study areas are matched, and quite possibly exceeded, by the prodigious variety of subjects he has tackled in numerous scientific publications, which are ...

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Joint species distribution modeling reveals a changing prey landscape for North Pacific right whales on the Bering shelf

Wright,

Kimmel,

Roberson

et al. 2023

Ecological Applications

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The eastern North Pacific right whale (NPRW) is the most endangered population of whale and has been observed north of its core feeding ground in recent years with low sea ice extent. Sea ice and water temperature are important drivers for zooplankton dynamics within the whale's core feeding ground in the southeastern Bering Sea, seasonally forming stable fronts along the shelf that give rise to distinct zooplankton communities. A northward shift in NPRW distribution driven by changing distribution of prey resources could put this species at increased risk of entanglement and vessel strikes. We modeled the abundance of NPRW prey, Calanus glacialis, Neocalanus, and Thysanoessa species, using a dynamic biophysical food web model of nine zooplankton guilds in the Bering shelf zooplankton community during a period of warming (2006‐2016). This model is unique from prior zooplankton studies from the region in that it includes density dependence, thereby allowing us to ask whether species interactions influence zooplankton dynamics. Modeling confirmed the importance of sea ice and ocean temperature to zooplankton dynamics in the region. Density‐independent growth drove community dynamics while dependent factors were comparatively minimal. Overall, Calanus responded to environment terms, with the strength and direction of response driven by copepodite stage. Neocalanus and Thysanoessa responses were weaker, likely due to their primary occurrence on the outer shelf. We also modeled the steady‐state (equilibrium) abundance of Calanus in conditions with and without wind gusts to test whether advection of outer shelf species might disrupt steady‐state dynamics of Calanus abundance; results did not support disruption. Given the annual fall sampling design, we interpret our results as follows: low‐ice extent winters induced stronger spring winds and weakened fronts on the shelf, thereby advecting some outer shelf species into the study region; increased development rates in these warm conditions influenced the proportion of C. glacialis copepodite stages over the season. Residual correlation suggests missing drivers, possibly predators and phytoplankton bloom composition. Given the continued loss of sea ice in the region and projected continued warming, our findings suggest that C. glacialis will move northward, and thus, whales may move northward to continue targeting them.

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Historic and current habitat use by North Pacific right whales Eubalaena japonica in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska

Cited by 37 publications

References 50 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

Islands of Inquiry: Colonisation, seafaring and the archaeology of maritime landscapes (TA29) : Colonisation, seafaring and the archaeology of maritime landscapes

Joint species distribution modeling reveals a changing prey landscape for North Pacific right whales on the Bering shelf

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