Humpback whale song recordings suggest common feeding ground occupation by multiple populations.

ABSTRACT: Humpback whale males are known to sing on their low-latitude breeding grounds, but it is well established that songs are also commonly produced 'off-season' on the feeding grounds or during migration. This opens exciting opportunities to investigate migratory aggregations, study humpback whale behavioral plasticity and potentially even assign individual singers to specific breeding grounds. In this study, we analyzed passive acoustic data from 13 recording positions and multiple years (2011-2018) within the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean (ASSO). Humpback whale song was detected at nine recording positions in five years. Most songs were recorded in May, austral fall, coinciding with the rapid increase in sea ice concentration at most recording positions. The spatio-temporal pattern i

SUBMITTER: Schall E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8458523 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature