Good day MARMAM Colleagues, On behalf of my co-authors, I am happy to announce the publication of our below paper in Scientific Reports: Shabangu, F.W., Munoz, T., Van Uffelen, L., Estabrook, B.E.,Yemane, D., Stafford, K.M., Branch, T.A., Vermeulen, E., van den Berg, M.A.,Lamont, T. 2024. Diverse baleen whale acoustic occurrence around twosub-Antarctic Islands: A tale of residents and visitors. Sci. Rep. 14, 21663. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-72696-2
Abstract Knowledge on the occurrence and behaviour of baleen whalesaround sub-Antarctic regions is limited, and usually based on short, seasonalsighting research from shore or research vessels and whaling records, neitherof which provide accurate and comprehensive year-round perspectives of these animals’ecology. We investigated the seasonal acoustic occurrence and diel vocalizingpattern of baleen whales around the sub-Antarctic Prince Edward Islands (PEIs)using passive acoustic monitoring data from mid-2021 to mid-2023, detecting sixdistinct baleen whale songs from Antarctic blue whales, Madagascan pygmy bluewhales, fin whales, Antarctic minke whales, humpback whales, and sei whales.Antarctic blue and fin whales were detected year-round whereas the otherspecies’ songs were detected seasonally, including a new Antarctic minke whalebio-duck song sub-type described here for the first time. Antarctic minke andsei whales were more vocally active at night-time whereas the other species hadno clear diel vocalizing patterns. Random forest models identified month and/orsea surface temperature as the most important predictors of all baleen whaleacoustic occurrence. These novel results highlight the PEIs as a useful habitatfor baleen whales given the number of species that inhabit or transit throughthis region. The paper is open access and downloadable from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-72696-2 Kind regards,Fannie _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Fannie W. Shabangu, PhD (He/Him) Marine BiologistDepartment of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Cape Town, South AfricaE-mail: fannie.shaba...@yahoo.com; fshaba...@dffe.gov.za Mobile: +27 74 220 0210 Tel: +27 21 402 3553 Research Fellow Mammal Research InstituteWhale Unit University of PretoriaHatfield, South Africa
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