Seasonality of humpback whale Megaptera novaeangliae (Borowski, 1781) records in Cape Verde seas : evidence for the occurrence of stocks from both hemispheres?

• Main Authors: Hazevoet, Cornelis J., Gravanita, Barbara, López Suárez, Pedro, Wenzel, Frederick W.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: ddc:590; Rasmussen; Humpback Whale; Megaptera novaeangliae
• Online Access: http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/36998; https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-369980; http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-369980; http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/files/36998/hazevoet_2011_whale.pdf

Humpback whales Megaptera novaeangliae perform the longest known migrations among mammalian species (Stone et al. 1990, Rasmussen et al. 2007), feeding at high latitudes during the summer and undertaking annual journeys to their wintering breeding grounds in warm and shallow tropical waters (Winn & Reichley 1985, Clapham & Mead 1999). Due to breeding site fidelity and temporal separation at low latitudes, gene flow between Northern and Southern Hemisphere populations appears to be very limited (Rizzo & Schulte 2009). However, inter-oceanic exchange has recently been documented (Pomilla & Rosenbaum 2005, Stevick et al. 2010), demonstrating that philopatry may not be as strong as previously inferred (cf. Baker et al. 1993, 1994, Valsecchi et al. 1997).