A recent paper with CRC authors, Oceanic Giants Dance to Atmospheric Rhythms: Ephemeral Wind-Driven Resource Tracking by Blue Whales, was featured this week on youtube’s SciShow, hosted by Hank Green!
The paper explores the hypothesis that blue whales track wind-driven upwelling to feed on aggregated prey species near these features, focusing on the California Current Ecosystem. Using acoustic data combined with remotely-sensed environmental data, the authors demonstrate that blue whale calls were temporally associated with upwelling and prey species aggregations. Knowledge of how blue whales are targeting prey species may help to inform dynamic management of anthropogenic threats such as ship strikes, as information about where blue whales are most likely to be feeding can be used to adjust shipping traffic speeds and lanes to minimize overlap and risk.
You can download a PDF copy of the article here!