Individual and joint estimation of humpback whale migratory patterns and their environmental drivers in the Southwest Atlantic Ocean.

ABSTRACT: Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) perform seasonal migrations from high latitude feeding grounds to low latitude breeding and calving grounds. Feeding grounds at polar regions are currently experiencing major ecosystem modifications, therefore, quantitatively assessing species responses to habitat characteristics is crucial for understanding how whales might respond to such modifications. We analyzed satellite telemetry data from 22 individual humpback whales in the Southwest Atlantic Ocean (SWA). Tagging effort was divided in two periods, 2003-2012 and 2016-2019. Correlations between whale's movement parameters and environmental variables were used as proxy for inferring behavioral responses to environmental variation. Two versions of a covariate-driven continuous-time correlated r

SUBMITTER: Bedrinana-Romano L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9076679 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature