Alternative method for assessment of southwestern Atlantic humpback whale population status.

ABSTRACT: The population of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) wintering off eastern South America was exploited by commercial whaling almost to the point of extinction in the mid-twentieth century. Since cessation of whaling in the 1970s it is recovering, but the timing and level of recovery is uncertain. We implemented a Bayesian population dynamics model describing the population's trajectory from 1901 and projecting it to 2040 to revise a previous population status assessment that used Sampling-Importance-Resampling in a Bayesian framework. Using our alternative method for model fitting (Markov chain Monte Carlo), which is more widely accessible to ecologists, we replicate a "base case scenario" to verify the effect on model results, and introduce additional data to update the status asses

SUBMITTER: Bortolotto GA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8598017 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature