Dataset Information

The development of an intermediate-duration tag to characterize the diving behavior of large whales.

ABSTRACT: The development of high-resolution archival tag technologies has revolutionized our understanding of diving behavior in marine taxa such as sharks, turtles, and seals during their wide-ranging movements. However, similar applications for large whales have lagged behind due to the difficulty of keeping tags on the animals for extended periods of time. Here, we present a novel configuration of a transdermally attached biologging device called the Advanced Dive Behavior (ADB) tag. The ADB tag contains sensors that record hydrostatic pressure, three-axis accelerometers, magnetometers, water temperature, and light level, all sampled at 1 Hz. The ADB tag also collects Fastloc GPS locations and can send dive summary data through Service Argos, while staying attached to a whale for typical periods of 3-7 weeks before releasing for recovery and subsequent data download. ADB tags were deployed on sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus; N = 46), blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus; N = 8), and fin whales (B. physalus; N = 5) from 2007 to 2015, resulting in attachment durations from 0 to 49.6 days, and recording 31 to 2,539 GPS locations and 27 to 2,918 dives per deployment. Archived dive profiles matched well with published dive shapes of each species from short-term records. For blue and fin whales, feeding lunges were detected using peaks in accelerometer data and matched corresponding vertical excursions in the depth record. In sperm whales, rapid orientation changes in the accelerometer data, often during the bottom phase of dives, were likely related to prey pursuit, representing a relative measure of foraging effort. Sperm whales were documented repeatedly diving to, and likely foraging along, the seafloor. Data from the temperature sensor described the vertical structure of the water column in all three species, extending from the surface to depths >1,600 m. In addition to providing information needed to construct multiweek time budgets, the ADB tag is well suited to studying the effects of anthropogenic sound on whales by allowing for pre- and post-exposure monitoring of the whale's dive behavior. This tag begins to bridge the gap between existing long-duration but low-data throughput tags, and short-duration, high-resolution data loggers.

SUBMITTER: Mate BR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5243192 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The development of an intermediate-duration tag to characterize the diving behavior of large whales.

Mate Bruce R BR Irvine Ladd M LM Palacios Daniel M DM

Ecology and evolution 20161220 2

The development of high-resolution archival tag technologies has revolutionized our understanding of diving behavior in marine taxa such as sharks, turtles, and seals during their wide-ranging movements. However, similar applications for large whales have lagged behind due to the difficulty of keeping tags on the animals for extended periods of time. Here, we present a novel configuration of a transdermally attached biologging device called the Advanced Dive Behavior (ADB) tag. The ADB tag conta ...[more]

PMID: 28116055

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Project description:In habitat modelling, environmental variables are assumed to be proxies of lower trophic levels distribution and by extension, of marine top predator distributions. More proximal variables, such as potential prey fields, could refine relationships between top predator distributions and their environment. In situ data on prey distributions are not available over large spatial scales but, a numerical model, the Spatial Ecosystem And POpulation DYnamics Model (SEAPODYM), provides simulations of the biomass and production of zooplankton and six functional groups of micronekton at the global scale. Here, we explored whether generalised additive models fitted to simulated prey distribution data better predicted deep-diver densities (here beaked whales Ziphiidae and sperm whales Physeter macrocephalus) than models fitted to environmental variables. We assessed whether the combination of environmental and prey distribution data would further improve model fit by comparing their explanatory power. For both taxa, results were suggestive of a preference for habitats associated with topographic features and thermal fronts but also for habitats with an extended euphotic zone and with large prey of the lower mesopelagic layer. For beaked whales, no SEAPODYM variable was selected in the best model that combined the two types of variables, possibly because SEAPODYM does not accurately simulate the organisms on which beaked whales feed on. For sperm whales, the increase model performance was only marginal. SEAPODYM outputs were at best weakly correlated with sightings of deep-diving cetaceans, suggesting SEAPODYM may not accurately predict the prey fields of these taxa. This study was a first investigation and mostly highlighted the importance of the physiographic variables to understand mechanisms that influence the distribution of deep-diving cetaceans. A more systematic use of SEAPODYM could allow to better define the limits of its use and a development of the model that would simulate larger prey beyond 1,000 m would probably better characterise the prey of deep-diving cetaceans.

Project description:Dive capacity among toothed whales (suborder: Odontoceti) has been shown to generally increase with body mass in a relationship closely linked to the allometric scaling of metabolic rates. However, two odontocete species tagged in this study, the Blainville's beaked whale Mesoplodon densirostris and the Cuvier's beaked whale Ziphius cavirostris, confounded expectations of a simple allometric relationship, with exceptionally long (mean: 46.1 min & 65.4 min) and deep dives (mean: 1129 m & 1179 m), and comparatively small body masses (med.: 842.9 kg & 1556.7 kg). These two species also exhibited exceptionally long recovery periods between successive deep dives, or inter-deep-dive intervals (M. densirostris: med. 62 min; Z. cavirostris: med. 68 min). We examined competing hypotheses to explain observed patterns of vertical habitat use based on body mass, oxygen binding protein concentrations, and inter-deep-dive intervals in an assemblage of five sympatric toothed whales species in the Bahamas. Hypotheses were evaluated using dive data from satellite tags attached to the two beaked whales (M. densirostris, n = 12; Z. cavirostris, n = 7), as well as melon-headed whales Peponocephala electra (n = 13), short-finned pilot whales Globicephala macrorhynchus (n = 15), and sperm whales Physeter macrocephalus (n = 27). Body mass and myoglobin concentration together explained only 36% of the variance in maximum dive durations. The inclusion of inter-deep-dive intervals, substantially improved model fits (R2 = 0.92). This finding supported a hypothesis that beaked whales extend foraging dives by exceeding aerobic dive limits, with the extension of inter-deep-dive intervals corresponding to metabolism of accumulated lactic acid. This inference points to intriguing tradeoffs between body size, access to prey in different depth strata, and time allocation within dive cycles. These tradeoffs and resulting differences in habitat use have important implications for spatial distribution patterns, and relative vulnerabilities to anthropogenic impacts.

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The development of an intermediate-duration tag to characterize the diving behavior of large whales.

Publications

The development of an intermediate-duration tag to characterize the diving behavior of large whales.

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