Decline in abundance and apparent survival rates of fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence
Estimates of abundance and survivorship provide quantifiable measures to monitor populations and to define and understand their conservation status. This study investigated changes in abundance and survival rates of fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence in the conte...
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Online Access: | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6468087/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31016001 https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5055 |
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:6468087 2023-05-15T15:36:35+02:00 Decline in abundance and apparent survival rates of fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence Schleimer, Anna Ramp, Christian Delarue, Julien Carpentier, Alain Bérubé, Martine Palsbøll, Per J. Sears, Richard Hammond, Philip S. 2019-03-15 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6468087/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31016001 https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5055 en eng John Wiley and Sons Inc. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6468087/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31016001 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5055 © 2019 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. CC-BY Original Research Text 2019 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5055 2019-04-28T00:18:07Z Estimates of abundance and survivorship provide quantifiable measures to monitor populations and to define and understand their conservation status. This study investigated changes in abundance and survival rates of fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence in the context of anthropogenic pressures and changing environmental conditions. A long‐term data set, consisting of 35 years of photo‐identification surveys and comprising more than 5,000 identifications of 507 individuals, formed the basis of this mark–recapture study. Based on model selection using corrected Akaike Information Criterion, the most parsimonious Cormack–Jolly–Seber model included a linear temporal trend in noncalf apparent survival rates with a sharp decline in the last 5 years of the study and a median survival rate of 0.946 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.910–0.967). To account for capture heterogeneity due to divergent patterns of site fidelity, agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis was employed to categorize individuals based on their annual and survey site fidelity indices. However, the negative trend in survivorship remained and was corroborated by a significant decline in the estimated super‐population size from 335 (95% CI 321–348) individuals in 2004–2010 to 291 (95% CI 270–312) individuals in 2010–2016. Concurrently, a negative trend was estimated in recruitment to the population, supported by a sharp decrease in the number of observed calves. Ship strikes and changes in prey availability are potential drivers of the observed decline in fin whale abundance. The combination of clustering methods with mark–recapture represents a flexible way to investigate the effects of site fidelity on demographic variables and is broadly applicable to other individual‐based studies. Text Balaenoptera physalus Fin whale PubMed Central (PMC) Ecology and Evolution 9 7 4231 4244 |
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Original Research Schleimer, Anna Ramp, Christian Delarue, Julien Carpentier, Alain Bérubé, Martine Palsbøll, Per J. Sears, Richard Hammond, Philip S. Decline in abundance and apparent survival rates of fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence |
topic_facet |
Original Research |
description |
Estimates of abundance and survivorship provide quantifiable measures to monitor populations and to define and understand their conservation status. This study investigated changes in abundance and survival rates of fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence in the context of anthropogenic pressures and changing environmental conditions. A long‐term data set, consisting of 35 years of photo‐identification surveys and comprising more than 5,000 identifications of 507 individuals, formed the basis of this mark–recapture study. Based on model selection using corrected Akaike Information Criterion, the most parsimonious Cormack–Jolly–Seber model included a linear temporal trend in noncalf apparent survival rates with a sharp decline in the last 5 years of the study and a median survival rate of 0.946 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.910–0.967). To account for capture heterogeneity due to divergent patterns of site fidelity, agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis was employed to categorize individuals based on their annual and survey site fidelity indices. However, the negative trend in survivorship remained and was corroborated by a significant decline in the estimated super‐population size from 335 (95% CI 321–348) individuals in 2004–2010 to 291 (95% CI 270–312) individuals in 2010–2016. Concurrently, a negative trend was estimated in recruitment to the population, supported by a sharp decrease in the number of observed calves. Ship strikes and changes in prey availability are potential drivers of the observed decline in fin whale abundance. The combination of clustering methods with mark–recapture represents a flexible way to investigate the effects of site fidelity on demographic variables and is broadly applicable to other individual‐based studies. |
format |
Text |
author |
Schleimer, Anna Ramp, Christian Delarue, Julien Carpentier, Alain Bérubé, Martine Palsbøll, Per J. Sears, Richard Hammond, Philip S. |
author_facet |
Schleimer, Anna Ramp, Christian Delarue, Julien Carpentier, Alain Bérubé, Martine Palsbøll, Per J. Sears, Richard Hammond, Philip S. |
author_sort |
Schleimer, Anna |
title |
Decline in abundance and apparent survival rates of fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence |
title_short |
Decline in abundance and apparent survival rates of fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence |
title_full |
Decline in abundance and apparent survival rates of fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence |
title_fullStr |
Decline in abundance and apparent survival rates of fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence |
title_full_unstemmed |
Decline in abundance and apparent survival rates of fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence |
title_sort |
decline in abundance and apparent survival rates of fin whales (balaenoptera physalus) in the northern gulf of st. lawrence |
publisher |
John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6468087/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31016001 https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5055 |
genre |
Balaenoptera physalus Fin whale |
genre_facet |
Balaenoptera physalus Fin whale |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6468087/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31016001 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5055 |
op_rights |
© 2019 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5055 |
container_title |
Ecology and Evolution |
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9 |
container_issue |
7 |
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4231 |
op_container_end_page |
4244 |
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1766366948340269056 |