Characterizing movement and searching behavior of humpback whales at the North-Norwegian coast
Studying movement patterns of individual animals over time can give insight into how they interact with the environment and optimize their foraging strategies. Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) undertake long seasonal migrations between feeding areas in polar regions during summer/early winte...
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UiT Norges arktiske universitet
2022
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Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10037/25753 |
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ftunivtroemsoe:oai:munin.uit.no:10037/25753 2023-05-15T15:39:09+02:00 Characterizing movement and searching behavior of humpback whales at the North-Norwegian coast Utengen, Ingvild Ytterhus 2022-05-16 https://hdl.handle.net/10037/25753 eng eng UiT Norges arktiske universitet UiT The Arctic University of Norway https://hdl.handle.net/10037/25753 Copyright 2022 The Author(s) humpback whale animal movement Megaptera novaeangliae Culpea harengus satellite tracking foraging BIO-3950 Master thesis Mastergradsoppgave 2022 ftunivtroemsoe 2022-07-06T22:58:58Z Studying movement patterns of individual animals over time can give insight into how they interact with the environment and optimize their foraging strategies. Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) undertake long seasonal migrations between feeding areas in polar regions during summer/early winter and breeding areas in more tropical areas during late winter/spring. The Norwegian Sea is a part of the humpback whale migration route between the Barents Sea and their southern breeding grounds, and during the last decade several individuals have had up to a three month stop-over period around some specific fjord areas in Northern Norway. Here they feed on Norwegian spring-spawning (NSS-) herring (Culpea harengus L.) to seemingly re-fuel before continuing their southwards breeding migration. Their smaller scale movement and individual variation in behavioral patterns during this stop-over period are not well understood, including why some whales have been observed to leave the fjords and then later return within the same season. Therefore, this study used data from 12 satellite tagged humpback whales and for the first time segmented their tracks into five distinct movement modes; ranging, encamped, nomadic, roundtrip and semi-roundtrip. This was done by using a behavioral change point analysis (BCPA) to pick out homogeneous segments based on persistence velocity at relatively small scales, and then modeled the net squared displacement (NSD) over time to differentiate movement modes. This study also visually identified longer roundtrips away from the fjords that lasted several days and examined movement modes within these. The most common movement mode was ranging behavior (54%), particularly seen during the start of their southwards migration and in areas outside the fjord systems in late winter, indicating when the whales moved over larger distances in the offshore habitat. Inside the fjord systems, encamped, nomadic, round and semi-roundtrip modes were more prevalent in December-January, suggesting the whales are ... Master Thesis Barents Sea Humpback Whale Megaptera novaeangliae Northern Norway Norwegian Sea University of Tromsø: Munin Open Research Archive Barents Sea Norway Norwegian Sea |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of Tromsø: Munin Open Research Archive |
op_collection_id |
ftunivtroemsoe |
language |
English |
topic |
humpback whale animal movement Megaptera novaeangliae Culpea harengus satellite tracking foraging BIO-3950 |
spellingShingle |
humpback whale animal movement Megaptera novaeangliae Culpea harengus satellite tracking foraging BIO-3950 Utengen, Ingvild Ytterhus Characterizing movement and searching behavior of humpback whales at the North-Norwegian coast |
topic_facet |
humpback whale animal movement Megaptera novaeangliae Culpea harengus satellite tracking foraging BIO-3950 |
description |
Studying movement patterns of individual animals over time can give insight into how they interact with the environment and optimize their foraging strategies. Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) undertake long seasonal migrations between feeding areas in polar regions during summer/early winter and breeding areas in more tropical areas during late winter/spring. The Norwegian Sea is a part of the humpback whale migration route between the Barents Sea and their southern breeding grounds, and during the last decade several individuals have had up to a three month stop-over period around some specific fjord areas in Northern Norway. Here they feed on Norwegian spring-spawning (NSS-) herring (Culpea harengus L.) to seemingly re-fuel before continuing their southwards breeding migration. Their smaller scale movement and individual variation in behavioral patterns during this stop-over period are not well understood, including why some whales have been observed to leave the fjords and then later return within the same season. Therefore, this study used data from 12 satellite tagged humpback whales and for the first time segmented their tracks into five distinct movement modes; ranging, encamped, nomadic, roundtrip and semi-roundtrip. This was done by using a behavioral change point analysis (BCPA) to pick out homogeneous segments based on persistence velocity at relatively small scales, and then modeled the net squared displacement (NSD) over time to differentiate movement modes. This study also visually identified longer roundtrips away from the fjords that lasted several days and examined movement modes within these. The most common movement mode was ranging behavior (54%), particularly seen during the start of their southwards migration and in areas outside the fjord systems in late winter, indicating when the whales moved over larger distances in the offshore habitat. Inside the fjord systems, encamped, nomadic, round and semi-roundtrip modes were more prevalent in December-January, suggesting the whales are ... |
format |
Master Thesis |
author |
Utengen, Ingvild Ytterhus |
author_facet |
Utengen, Ingvild Ytterhus |
author_sort |
Utengen, Ingvild Ytterhus |
title |
Characterizing movement and searching behavior of humpback whales at the North-Norwegian coast |
title_short |
Characterizing movement and searching behavior of humpback whales at the North-Norwegian coast |
title_full |
Characterizing movement and searching behavior of humpback whales at the North-Norwegian coast |
title_fullStr |
Characterizing movement and searching behavior of humpback whales at the North-Norwegian coast |
title_full_unstemmed |
Characterizing movement and searching behavior of humpback whales at the North-Norwegian coast |
title_sort |
characterizing movement and searching behavior of humpback whales at the north-norwegian coast |
publisher |
UiT Norges arktiske universitet |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://hdl.handle.net/10037/25753 |
geographic |
Barents Sea Norway Norwegian Sea |
geographic_facet |
Barents Sea Norway Norwegian Sea |
genre |
Barents Sea Humpback Whale Megaptera novaeangliae Northern Norway Norwegian Sea |
genre_facet |
Barents Sea Humpback Whale Megaptera novaeangliae Northern Norway Norwegian Sea |
op_relation |
https://hdl.handle.net/10037/25753 |
op_rights |
Copyright 2022 The Author(s) |
_version_ |
1766370608401088512 |