Strong and lasting impacts of past global warming on baleen whales and their prey

• Published in: Global Change Biology
• Main Authors: Cabrera, Andrea A., Schall, Elena, Berube, Martine, Anderwald, Pia, Bachmann, Lutz, Berrow, Simon, Best, Peter, Clapham, Phillip J., Cunha, Haydee A., Dalla Rosa, Luciano, Dias, Carolina, Findlay, Ken P., Haug, Tore, Heide-Jorgensen, Mads Peter, Hoelzel, A. Rus, Kovacs, Kit M., Landry, Scott, Larsen, Finn, Lopes, Xenia M., Lydersen, Christian, Mattila, David K., Oosting, Tom, Pace, Richard M., Papetti, Chiara, Paspati, Angeliki, Pastene, Luis A., Prieto, Rui, Ramp, Christian, Robbins, Jooke, Sears, Richard, Secchi, Eduardo R., Silva, Monica A., Simon, Malene, Vikingsson, Gisli, Wiig, Oystein, Oien, Nils, Palsboll, Per J.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2022
• Subjects: Southern Ocean; Polar ecosystems; North Atlantic Ocean; Marine ecosystem; Cetaceans; Climate change; Demographic inference; Genetics; Last glacial maximum (LGM); Baleen whales; baleen whale; baleen whales; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2263/90483; https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16085

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT : Mitochondrial and nuclear data information, analysis scripts, input files, analysis outputs, and other relevant data have been deposited at GitHub (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5838316). Mitochondrial sequence data can be found in the input files for Migrate analyses. Raw FASTQ files from the nuclear data have been deposited in NCBI's Sequence Read Archive (Bioproject ID: PRJNA791939; Sample ID: SAMN24369310-SAMN24369409; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/791939). Global warming is affecting the population dynamics and trophic interactions across a wide range of ecosystems and habitats. Translating these real-time effects into their long-term consequences remains a challenge. The rapid and extreme warming period that occurred after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) during the Pleistocene–Holocene transition (7–12 thousand years ago) provides an opportunity to gain insights into the long-term responses of natural populations to periods with global warming. The effects of this post-LGM warming period have been assessed in many terrestrial taxa, whereas insights into the impacts of rapid global warming on marine taxa remain limited, especially for megafauna. In order to understand how large-scale climate fluctuations during the post-LGM affected baleen whales and their prey, we conducted an extensive, large-scale analysis of the long-term effects of the post-LGM warming on abundance and inter-ocean connectivity in eight baleen whale and seven prey (fish and invertebrates) species across the Southern and the North Atlantic Ocean; two ocean basins that differ in key oceanographic features. The analysis was based upon 7032 mitochondrial DNA sequences as well as genome-wide DNA sequence variation in 100 individuals. The estimated temporal changes in genetic diversity during the last 30,000 years indicated that most baleen whale populations underwent post-LGM expansions in both ocean basins. The increase in baleen whale abundance during the Holocene was associated with simultaneous ...