Using long-term passive acoustic monitoring to examine blue whale migration in a changing world
Blue whales, like many other baleen whale species, are threatened by anthropogenic activities and climate change. In the previous century, blue whales were hunted to the brink of extinction and their numbers remain at a fraction of their original population. Studying blue whales can be difficult due...
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UNSW, Sydney
2023
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Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/101663 https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/25370 |
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ftunswworks:oai:unsworks.library.unsw.edu.au:1959.4/101663 2023-12-24T10:11:24+01:00 Using long-term passive acoustic monitoring to examine blue whale migration in a changing world Truong, Gary 2023 http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/101663 https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/25370 en eng UNSW, Sydney http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/101663 https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/25370 embargoed access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_f1cf CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ blue whales Antarctic krill Antarctic sea ice climate change passive acoustic monitoring pygmy blue whale Southern Hemisphere El Nino Southern Oscillation La Nina El Nino Satellite data sea surface temperature chlorophyll migration environmental modelling anzsrc-for: 310305 Marine and estuarine ecology (incl. marine ichthyology) doctoral thesis http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06 2023 ftunswworks https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/25370 2023-11-27T23:33:54Z Blue whales, like many other baleen whale species, are threatened by anthropogenic activities and climate change. In the previous century, blue whales were hunted to the brink of extinction and their numbers remain at a fraction of their original population. Studying blue whales can be difficult due to their low numbers and often remote habitat where they are found. To identify how climate change is affecting blue whales, long term data is needed. However long-term studies can be logistically difficult and financially costly. Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) provides a cost-effective and non-invasive way for collecting long-term data on vocal species. PAM is a suitable tool for studying blue whales as they produce highly stereotypical songs. In this thesis, I examined the acoustic presence of several blue whale populations across the Southern Hemisphere. I examined the degree of overlap between Antarctic blue whales and subantarctic blue whales in the Southeast Pacific Ocean and the Southeast Indian Ocean. I found that Antarctic blue whales were sympatric with both the Chilean blue whale and the Southeast Indian Ocean blue whale during the austral autumn/winter. However, the peak in acoustic detection occurred later for the Antarctic blue whales. I modelled the interannual variability of the SEIO pygmy blue whale with environmental data and found a strong correlation with El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the number of whale call detections. I also modelled the Antarctic blue whale presence across four sites in the Southern Hemisphere and found that ENSO, the Southern Annular Mode, Antarctic sea-ice extent, and Antarctic krill abundance were correlated with the acoustic detections of Antarctic blue whales. These results show that blue whale migration is influenced by environmental conditions likely due to changing availability of their prey such as krill. This highlights that climate change will impact blue whales in the future by altering productivity in their primary feeding areas with the potential to ... Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Krill baleen whale Blue whale Sea ice UNSW Sydney (The University of New South Wales): UNSWorks Antarctic Austral Indian Pacific The Antarctic |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
UNSW Sydney (The University of New South Wales): UNSWorks |
op_collection_id |
ftunswworks |
language |
English |
topic |
blue whales Antarctic krill Antarctic sea ice climate change passive acoustic monitoring pygmy blue whale Southern Hemisphere El Nino Southern Oscillation La Nina El Nino Satellite data sea surface temperature chlorophyll migration environmental modelling anzsrc-for: 310305 Marine and estuarine ecology (incl. marine ichthyology) |
spellingShingle |
blue whales Antarctic krill Antarctic sea ice climate change passive acoustic monitoring pygmy blue whale Southern Hemisphere El Nino Southern Oscillation La Nina El Nino Satellite data sea surface temperature chlorophyll migration environmental modelling anzsrc-for: 310305 Marine and estuarine ecology (incl. marine ichthyology) Truong, Gary Using long-term passive acoustic monitoring to examine blue whale migration in a changing world |
topic_facet |
blue whales Antarctic krill Antarctic sea ice climate change passive acoustic monitoring pygmy blue whale Southern Hemisphere El Nino Southern Oscillation La Nina El Nino Satellite data sea surface temperature chlorophyll migration environmental modelling anzsrc-for: 310305 Marine and estuarine ecology (incl. marine ichthyology) |
description |
Blue whales, like many other baleen whale species, are threatened by anthropogenic activities and climate change. In the previous century, blue whales were hunted to the brink of extinction and their numbers remain at a fraction of their original population. Studying blue whales can be difficult due to their low numbers and often remote habitat where they are found. To identify how climate change is affecting blue whales, long term data is needed. However long-term studies can be logistically difficult and financially costly. Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) provides a cost-effective and non-invasive way for collecting long-term data on vocal species. PAM is a suitable tool for studying blue whales as they produce highly stereotypical songs. In this thesis, I examined the acoustic presence of several blue whale populations across the Southern Hemisphere. I examined the degree of overlap between Antarctic blue whales and subantarctic blue whales in the Southeast Pacific Ocean and the Southeast Indian Ocean. I found that Antarctic blue whales were sympatric with both the Chilean blue whale and the Southeast Indian Ocean blue whale during the austral autumn/winter. However, the peak in acoustic detection occurred later for the Antarctic blue whales. I modelled the interannual variability of the SEIO pygmy blue whale with environmental data and found a strong correlation with El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the number of whale call detections. I also modelled the Antarctic blue whale presence across four sites in the Southern Hemisphere and found that ENSO, the Southern Annular Mode, Antarctic sea-ice extent, and Antarctic krill abundance were correlated with the acoustic detections of Antarctic blue whales. These results show that blue whale migration is influenced by environmental conditions likely due to changing availability of their prey such as krill. This highlights that climate change will impact blue whales in the future by altering productivity in their primary feeding areas with the potential to ... |
format |
Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis |
author |
Truong, Gary |
author_facet |
Truong, Gary |
author_sort |
Truong, Gary |
title |
Using long-term passive acoustic monitoring to examine blue whale migration in a changing world |
title_short |
Using long-term passive acoustic monitoring to examine blue whale migration in a changing world |
title_full |
Using long-term passive acoustic monitoring to examine blue whale migration in a changing world |
title_fullStr |
Using long-term passive acoustic monitoring to examine blue whale migration in a changing world |
title_full_unstemmed |
Using long-term passive acoustic monitoring to examine blue whale migration in a changing world |
title_sort |
using long-term passive acoustic monitoring to examine blue whale migration in a changing world |
publisher |
UNSW, Sydney |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/101663 https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/25370 |
geographic |
Antarctic Austral Indian Pacific The Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Austral Indian Pacific The Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Krill baleen whale Blue whale Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Krill baleen whale Blue whale Sea ice |
op_relation |
http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/101663 https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/25370 |
op_rights |
embargoed access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_f1cf CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/25370 |
_version_ |
1786164372693843968 |