By: Alexa Kownacki, Ph.D. Student, OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab
As technology has developed over the past ten years, toxins
in marine mammals have become an emerging issue. Environmental toxins are
anything that can pose a risk to the health of plants or animals at a dosage.
They can be natural or synthetic with varying levels of toxicity based on the
organism and its physiology. Most prior research on the impacts toxins before
the 2000s was conducted on land or in streams because of human proximity to
these environments. However. with advancements in sampling methods, increasing
precision in laboratory testing, and additional focus from researchers, marine
mammals are being assessed for toxin loads more regularly.
A dolphin swims through a diesel slick caused by a small oil spill in a port. (Image Source: The Ocean Update Blog)
Marine mammals live most of their lives in the ocean or other aquatic systems, which requires additional insulation for protection from both cold temperatures and water exposure. This added insulation can take the form of lipid rich blubber, or fur and hair. Many organic toxins are lipid soluble and therefore are more readily found and stored in fatty tissues. When an organic toxin like a polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) is released into the environment from an old electrical transformer, it persists in sediments. As these sediments travel down rivers and into the ocean, these toxic substances slowly degrade in the environment and are lipophilic (attracted to fat). Small marine critters eat the sediment with small quantities of toxins, then larger critters eat those small critters and ingest larger quantities of toxins. This process is called biomagnification. By the time a dolphin consumes large contaminated fishes, the chemical levels may have reached a toxic level.
The process by which PCBs accumulate in marine mammals from small particles up to high concentrations in lipid layers. (Image Source: World Ocean Review)
Marine mammal scientists are teaming with biochemists and ecotoxicologists to better understand which toxins are more lethal and have more severe long-term effects on marine mammals, such as decreased reproduction rates, lowered immune systems, and neurocognitive delays. Studies have already shown that higher contaminant loads in dolphins cause all three of these negative effects (Trego et al. 2019). As a component of my thesis work on bottlenose dolphins I will be measuring contaminant levels of different toxins in blubber. Unfortunately, this research is costly and time-consuming. Many studies regarding the effects of toxins on marine mammals are funded through the US government, and this is where the public can have a voice in scientific research.
Rachel Carson examines a specimen from a stream collection site in the 1950s. (Image Source: Alfred Eisenstaedt/ The LIFE picture collection/ Getty Images.)
Prior to the 1960s, there were no laws regarding the discharge of toxic substances into our environment. When Rachel Carson published “Silent Spring” and catalogued the effects of pesticides on birds, the American public began to understand the importance of environmental regulation. Once World War II was over and people did not worry about imminent death due to wartime activities, a large portion of American society focused on what they were seeing in their towns: discharges from chemical plants, effluents from paper mills, taconite mines in the Great Lakes, and many more.
Discharge from a metallic sulfide mine collects in streams in northern Wisconsin. (Image Source: Sierra Club)
However, it was a very different book regarding pollutants in the environment that caught my attention – and that of a different generation and part of society – even more than “Silent Spring”. A book called “The Lorax”. In this 1972 children’s illustrated book by Dr. Seuss, a character called the Lorax “speaks for the trees”. The Lorax touches upon critical environmental issues such as water pollution, air pollution, terrestrial contamination, habitat loss, and ends with the poignant message, “Unless someone like you cared a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
The original book cover for “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss. (Image source: Amazon.com)
Within a decade, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was formed and multiple acts of congress were put in place, such as the National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Toxic Substances Control Act, with a mission to “protect human health and the environment.” The public had successfully prioritized protecting the environment and the government responded. Before this, rivers would catch fire from oil slicks, children would be banned from entering the water in fear of death, and fish would die by the thousands. The resulting legislation cleaned up our air, rivers, and lakes so that people could swim, fish, and live without fear of toxic substance exposures.
The Cuyahoga River on fire in June 1969 after oil slicked debris ignited. (Image Source: Ohio Central History).
Fast forward to 2018 and times have changed yet again due to fear. According to a Pew Research poll, terrorism is the number one issue that US citizens prioritize, and Congress and the President should address. The environment was listed as the seventh highest priority, below Medicare (“Majorities Favor Increased Spending for Education, Veterans, Infrastructure, Other Govt. Programs.”). With this societal shift in priorities, research on toxins in marine mammals may no longer grace the covers of the National Geographic, Science, or Nature, not for lack of importance, but because of the allocation of taxpayer funds and political agendas. Meanwhile, long-lived marine mammals will still be accumulating toxins in their blubber layers and we, the people, will need to care a whole lot, to save the animals, the plants, and ultimately, our planet.
The Lorax telling the reader how to save the planet. (Image Source: “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss via the Plastic Bank)
Citations:
“Majorities Favor Increased Spending for Education,
Veterans, Infrastructure, Other Govt. Programs.” Pew Research Center for the
People and the Press, Pew Research Center, 11 Apr. 2019,
www.people-press.org/2019/04/11/little-public-support-for-reductions-in-federal-spending/pp_2019-04-11_federal-spending_0-01-2/.
Marisa L. Trego, Eunha Hoh, Andrew Whitehead, Nicholas M. Kellar, Morgane Lauf, Dana O. Datuin, and Rebecca L. Lewison. Environmental Science & Technology201953 (7), 3811-3822. DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.8b06487
By Leila S. Lemos, PhD candidate in Wildlife Sciences, Fisheries and Wildlife Department
I already started my countdown: 57 days until my PhD defense date! Being so close to this date brings me a lot of excitement about sharing with the community the results of the project I’ve been working on the past 4.5 years, and that I am really proud of. It also brings me lots of excitement when thinking about the new things that will come in my next phase of life. But even though I am excited, I’ve also been stressed, anxious and under depression. There is a mix of feelings rushing inside of me right now.
For those who don’t know me, I am originally from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I’ve been spending the last years far from my family, friends, language and culture. My favorite hobby always was to go to the beach and swim in the warm ocean. I would do that at least twice a week. Brazil is a tropical place and we can go to the beach all year round.
Me and my nephew in one of my favorite places in Brazil: Buzios, Rio de Janeiro.
Being in Oregon is really different. Oregon is gorgeous and I love it here, especially during the summer. However, the fall season brings the rain. Lots of rain, and it only stops around March. The absence of sun (and vitamin D) also contributes to depression. Even during the summer, I cannot swim in the ocean as the water is still really cold.
In addition to all of these factors, a PhD comes with classes, exams, fieldwork, research project, lots of reading and learning, manuscript writing, deadlines and great responsibilities. When you don’t have a scholarship or when it runs out (in my case), you also need to find a way to fund yourself until it finishes. Since last September I have been a teaching assistant for the university to cover my tuition and health insurance costs, and to earn a monthly stipend. The work never ends, and you always have more and more things to do.
Source: Costanza (2015).
A PhD is a full-time job, even if you are still technically a student. Actually, a PhD is a 24-hour job. Even if you are not working, you are thinking about your experiments and/or deadlines. Even if you are not awake, you are dreaming about it. You feel guilty all the time if you are doing things that are not related to your work.
But, it turns out I am not alone. The more I talk to people about the struggles, disappointments, anxiety, impostor syndrome, insomnia, depression, exhaustion of graduate school, the more I find that it is more common than I first thought. I have several friends facing the same problems right now.
I searched for some stats on this topic and I found a relatively recent study (Levecque et al. 2017) that evaluated the mental health of a sample of PhD students (N = 3659) from five different research discipline categories: sciences, biomedical sciences, applied sciences, humanities, and social sciences. PhD students were compared to other three groups: (1) highly educated individuals in the general population (N = 769), (2) highly educated employees (N = 592), and (3) higher education students (i.e., academic Bachelor, Master or Doctoral degree; N = 333). Research participants answered the web-based questionnaire that follows:
Table 1: Prevalence of common mental health problems in PhD students compared to three comparison groups.
Legend: RR: risk ratio adjusted for age and gender; CI: 95% confidence interval; GHQ2+: experienced at least two symptoms; GHQ3+: experienced at least three symptoms; GHQ4+: experienced at least four symptoms. Source: Levecque et al. (2017)
It was alarming to me to see some of these results. Here are some of them:
A GHQ2+ score indicated psychological distress, and the prevalence was about twice as high in PhD students compared to the highly educated general population. PhD students were consistently more affected when compared to all of the other groups.
They found a significant relationship between psychological distress and the risk of having or developing a common psychiatric disorder (GHQ4+).
The odds of experiencing at least two psychological symptoms were 34% higher for female PhD students than for males.
No differences between scientific disciplines were found.
And here’s the funny thing: My PhD project researches stress in gray whales along the Oregon coast. I have been evaluating gray whale overall health by using different tools like photogrammetry, endocrinology and acoustics to monitor these individual whales. The more I read about stress and all the physiological response that occurs within the bodies of all vertebrates, the more I imagine it happening to me and all of the possible consequences. However, I do not consider myself a specialist on the theme yet, so I leave my mental health to a specialist. I have been seeing a psychiatrist and a psychologist and I have been learning that work-life balance is crucial, and it helps us maintain sanity. I have also been learning some “exercises” to help me with anxiety and impostor syndrome. This topic may not be an easy to talk about, but it is extremely important. If you are reading this and identify yourself, contact a professional who can help you. It has helped me.
Institutions should also increase their efforts to systematically map and monitor stressors and its outcomes in PhD students (Levecque et al. 2017). Identifying the problems and working towards solutions will benefit the institutions as students will do a better job.
Right now, I am just trying my best to achieve a work-life balance while I am still getting things done on time. All of my data has been analyzed and now I just need to write my chapters and prepare my defense presentation! It is hard to believe that in only 57 days I will be done.
Source: Reddit (2019).
I feel like I have succeeded in painting a grim picture of life as a PhD student. If you were thinking of going to grad school and now you have doubts about it, stop right there! Grad school is challenging, but it is not impossible. There are many things that will bring you joy in grad school like a successful fieldwork season, a successful experiment, a good grade on an exam you studied really hard for, a compliment from your advisor, a R code that is finally running correctly, or an accepted manuscript in a relevant journal.
By the way… I just had a manuscript of my first thesis chapter accepted for publication and I could not be happier:
Getting a PhD is hard, but it is also rewarding. Also, any path you take in your career will have pros and cons. What determines your success is your resilience and how you deal with the challenges that come. You may be asking if I would still do a PhD if I could go back in time, right? The answer is yes! Even though I have been facing many (personal) challenges I am really proud of my PhD project findings and am glad to be contributing to the knowledge and conservation of these amazing animals.
But please, if you see me around don’t forget:
Source: Costanza (2015).
References:
Costanza T. 2015. 10 memes relate to PhD students. Available at: https://www.siliconrepublic. com/careers/10-memes-relate-to-phd-students. Date of assess: 01/20/2020
Reddit. 2019. Made a meme for my boyfriend who’s doing his PhD. Available at: https://www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/9fq2pq/made_a_meme_for_my_boyfriend_whos_doing_his_phd/. Date of assess: 01/20/2020
Levecque, K., F. Anseel, A. Beuckelaer, J. V. Heyden, and L. Gisle. 2017. Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students. Research Policy 46:868–879.
Another year has come and gone, and with the final days of 2019 upon us, it is fulfilling to look back and summarize all of the achievements in the GEMM Lab this year. So, snuggle up with your favorite holiday drink and enjoy our recap of 2019!
We wrapped up two intense but rewarding gray whale field seasons this summer. Our project investigating the health of Pacific Coast Feeding Group (PCFG) gray whales through fecal hormone and body condition sampling in the context of ocean noise went into its fourth year, while the Port Orford project where we track whales and prey at a very fine-scale celebrated its wood anniversary (five years!). The dedication and hard work of lots of people to help us collect our data meant that we were able to add a considerable amount of samples to our growing gray whale datasets. Our trusty red RHIB Ruby zipped around the Pacific and enabled us to collect 58 fecal samples, fly the drone 102 times, undertake 105 GoPro drops and record 141 gray whale sightings. Our Newport crew was a mix of full-time GEMMers (Leigh, Todd, Dawn, Leila, Clara, and myself) as well as part-time summer GEMMers (Ale, Sharon, and Cassy). Further south in Port Orford, my team of undergraduate and high school students and I had an interesting field season. We only encountered four different individuals (Buttons, Glacier, Smudge, and Primavera), however saw them repeatedly throughout the month of August, resulting in as many as 15 tracklines for one individual. Furthermore, we collected 249 GoPro drops and 248 zooplankton net samples.
Leila taking photos of gray whales from Ruby’s bow pulpit. Photo: Leigh Torres
2019 Port Orford team members Anthony & Lisa collecting prey samples from research kayak ‘Robustus’.
Gray whale fluke. Photo: Lisa Hildebrand.
The GEMM Lab’s fieldwork was not just restricted to gray whales. After last year’s successes aboard the NOAA ship Bell M. Shimada, Alexa and Dawn both boarded the ship again this year as marine mammal observers for the May and September cruises, respectively. They spied humpback, blue, sperm, and fin whales, as well as many dolphins and seabirds, adding to the GEMM Lab’s growing database of megafauna distribution off the Oregon coast.
Alexa observing on the R/V Shimada in May 2019, all bundled up. Image Photo: Alexa Kownacki
Dawn Barlow on the flying bridge of NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada, heading out to sea with the Newport bridge in the background. Photo: Anna Bolm.
After winning the prestigious L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science fellowship and the inaugural Louis Herman Scholarship, GEMM Lab grad Solène Derville lead her first research cruise aboard the French R/V Alis. She and her team conducted line transect surveys and micronekton/oceanographic sampling over several seamounts to try to solve the mystery of why humpbacks hang out there. We are also very excited to announce that Solène will be returning to the GEMM Lab as a post-doc in 2020! She will be creating distribution models of whales off the coast of Oregon with the data collected by Leigh during helicopter flights with the US Coast Guard. The primary aim of this work is to identify potential whale hotspots in an effort to avoid spatial overlap with fisheries gear and reduce entanglement risk.
Solène soaking wet after spending several hours observing cetaceans and seabirds on R/V Alis. Photo: Jérôme Jambou
A group of bottlenose dolphins observed over one of the seamounts. Photo: Elodie Vourey
Solène at the L’Oréal ceremony in the French National Museum of Natural History in Paris. Photo: Jean-Charles Caslot
Switching the focus from marine mammals to seabirds, Rachael has had an extremely busy year of field work all across the globe. She island-hopped from Midway (Hawaiian Northwest island) to the Falkland Islands in the first half of the year, and is currently overwintering on South Georgia, where she will be until end of February. Rachael is tracking albatross at all three locations by tagging individual birds to understand movements relative to fishing vessels and flight energetics.
Albatross chick. Photo: Rachael Orben
Recording data. Photo: V. Ternisien
Albatross chick and mother. Photo: Rachael Orben.
Besides several field efforts, the GEMM Lab was also busy disseminating our research and findings to various audiences. Our conferences kicked off in late February when Leigh and Rachael both flew to Kauai to present at the Pacific Seabird Group’s 46th Annual Meeting. In the spring, Leila, Dawn, Alexa, Dom, and myself drove to Seattle where the University of Washington hosted the Northwest Student Society of Marine Mammalogy chapter meeting and we all gave talks. Additionally, the Fisheries & Wildlife grad students in the lab also presented at the department’s annual Research Advances in Fisheries, Wildlife, and Ecology conference. Later in the year, Dom and I attended the State of the Coast conference where Dom was invited to participate in a panel about the holistic approaches to management in the nearshore while I presented a poster on preliminary findings of my Master’s thesis. Most recently, the entire GEMM Lab (bar Rachael) flew to Barcelona to present at the World Marine Mammal Conference (WMMC).
GEMM Lab at the WMMC. Photo: Karen Lohman
Our science communication and outreach efforts were not just restricted to conferences though. Over the course of this year, the GEMM Lab supervised a total of 10 undergraduate and high school interns that assisted in a variety of ways (field and/or lab work, data analyses, independent projects) on a number of projects going on in the lab. Leigh and Dawn boarded the R/V Oceanus in the fall to co-lead a STEM research cruise aimed at providing high school students and teachers hands-on marine research. Dawn and I were guests on Inspiration Dissemination, a live radio show run by graduate students about graduate research going on at OSU. Our weekly blog, now in its fifth year, reached its highest viewership with a total of 14,814 views this year!
The GEMMers were once again prolific writers too! The 13 new publications in 10 scientific journals include contributions from Leigh (7), Rachael (6), Solène (2), Dawn (2), and Leila (1). Scroll down to the end of the post to see the list.
Academic milestones were also reached by several of us. Most notably and recently, Dom successfully defended his Master’s thesis this past week – congratulations Dom!! Unsurprisingly, he already has a job lined up starting in January as a Science Officer with the California Ocean Science Trust. Dom is the 6th GEMM Lab graduate, which after just five years of the GEMM Lab existing is a huge testament to Leigh as an advisor. Leila, who is in the 4th year of her PhD, anticipates finishing this coming March. We also had three successful research reviews – I met with my committee in late March to discuss my Master’s proposal, while Alexa and Dawn met with their committees in the summer to review their PhD proposals. All three reviews were fruitful and successful. And we want to highlight the success of a GEMM Lab grad, Florence Sullivan, who started a job in Maui with the Pacific Whale Foundation in September as a Research Analyst.
Dom during his MS seminar. Photo: Leila Lemos
Post-defense happiness. Photo: Karen Lohman
Leigh was recognized for her expertise in gray whale ecology and was appointed to the IUCN Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel (WGWAP). The western gray whales are a critically endangered population. At one point in the 1960s, the population was so scarce that they were believed to have been extinct. While this concern did not prove to be the case, the population still is not doing well, which is why the IUCN formed WGWAP to provide advice on the conservation of the western gray whales. Leigh was appointed to the panel this year and traveled to Switzerland and Russia for meetings.
Clara aboard Ruby on her first day of gray whale field work in Oregon. Photo: Leigh Torres
We are excited about a new addition to the lab. Clara Bird started her MS in Wildlife Science in the Department of Fisheries & Wildlife this fall. She jumped straight into field work when she came in early September and got a taste of the Pacific. Clara joins us from the Duke University where she did her undergraduate degree and worked for the past year in their Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing Lab. Clara is digging into the gray whale drone footage collected over the last four field seasons and scrutinize them from a behavioral point of view.
If you are reading this post, we would like to say that we really appreciate your support and interest in our work! We hope you will continue to join us on our journeys in 2020. Until then, happy holidays from the GEMM Lab!
GEMM Lab at the beginning of June with some permanents GEMMs and some temporary summer GEMM helpers.
Barlow, D. R., M. Fournet, and F. Sharpe. 2019. Incorporating tides into the acoustic ecology of humpback whales. Marine Mammal Science 35:234-251.
Barlow, D. R., A. L. Pepper, and L. G. Torres. 2019. Skin deep: an assessment of New Zealand blue whale skin condition. Frontiers in Marine Science doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2019.00757.
Baylis, A. M. M., R. A. Orben, A. A. Arkhipkin, J. Barton, R. L. Brownell Jr., I. J. Staniland, and P. Brickle. 2019. Re-evaluating the population size of South American fur seals and conservation implications. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 29(11):1988-1995.
Baylis, A. M. M., M. Tierney, R. A. Orben, et al. 2019. Important at-sea areas of colonial breeding marine predators on the southern Patagonian Shelf. Scientific Reports 9:8517.
Cockerham, S., B. Lee, R. A. Orben, R. M. Suryan, L. G. Torres, P. Warzybok, R. Bradley, J. Jahncke, H. S. Young, C. Ouverney, and S. A. Shaffer. 2019. Microbial biology of the western gull (Larus occidentalis). Microbial Ecology 78:665-676.
Derville, S., L. G. Torres, R. Albertson, O. Andrews, C. S. Baker, P. Carzon, R. Constantine, M. Donoghue, C. Dutheil, A. Gannier, M. Oremus, M. M. Poole, J. Robbins, and C. Garrigue. 2019. Whales in warming water: assessing breeding habitat diversity and adaptability in Oceania’s changing climate. Global Change Biology 25(4):1466-1481.
Derville, S., L. G. Torres, R. Dodémont, V. Perard, and C. Garrigue. 2019. From land and sea, long-term data reveal persistent humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) breeding habitat in New Caledonia. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 29(10):1697-1711.
Fleischman, A. B., R. A. Orben, N. Kokubun, A. Will, R. Paredes, J. T. Ackerman, A. Takahashi, A. S. Kitaysky, and S. A. Shaffer. 2019. Wintering in the western Subantarctic Pacific increases mercury contamination of red-legged kittiwakes. Environmental Science & Technology 53(22):13398-13407.
Holdman, A. K., J. H. Haxel, H. Klinck, and L. G. Torres. 2019. Acoustic monitoring reveals the times and tides of harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) distribution off central Oregon, U.S.A. Marine Mammal Science 35:164-186.
Kroeger, C., D. E. Crocker, D. R. Thompson, L. G. Torres, P. Sagar, and S. A. Shaffer. 2019. Variation in corticosterone levels in two species of breeding albatrosses with divergent life histories: responses to body condition and drivers of foraging behavior. Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 92(2):223:238.
Loredo, S. A., R. A. Orben, R. M. Suryan, D. E. Lyons, J. Adams, and S. W. Stephensen. 2019. Spatial and temporal diving behavior of non-breeding common murres during two summers of contrasting ocean conditions. Journal of Experimental Biology and Ecology 517:13-24.
Monteiro, F., L. S. Lemos, J. Fulgêncio de Moura, R. C. C. Rocha, I. Moreira, A. P. Di Beneditto, H. A. Kehrig, I. C. A. C. Bordon, S. Siciliano, T. D. Saint’Pierre, and R. A. Hauser-Davis. 2019. Subcellular metal distributions and metallothionein associations in rough-toothed dolphins (Steno bredanensis) from southeastern Brazil. Marine Pollution Bulletin 146:263-273.
Orben, R. A., A. B. Fleischman, A. L. Borker, W. Bridgeland, A. J. Gladics, J. Porquez, P. Sanzenbacher, S. W. Stephensen, R. Swift, M. W. McKown, and R. M. Suryan. 2019. Comparing imaging, acoustics, and radar to monitor Leach’s storm-petrel colonies. PeerJ 7:e6721.
Yates, K. L., …, L. G. Torres, et al. 2019. Outstanding challenges in the transferability of ecological models. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 33(10):790-802.
The GEMM Lab is back from Barcelona after attending the World Marine Mammal Conference last week and it sure was a week to remember! Not only did every GEMM member present some aspect of their research at the conference (either as a poster, speed or full-length talk) but some of us also attended workshops, scheduled meetings with collaborators, new & old, and we certainly all learned a lot of new information about what is going on in marine mammalogy across the globe. Having had a few days now to reflect upon the intense four days spent at the conference, we want to highlight the talks that we each personally thought were some of the most interesting and exciting.
“Double Drone Drama” was the alliterative title of Héloïse Frouin-Mouy‘s talk about using two drones to collect simultaneous visual and underwater acoustic behavioral data of gray whales in Baja California, Mexico. While there were many talks during the week that discussed incorporating drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), into marine mammal research, this project was potentially the only one that discussed using two simultaneously. One drone collected visual aerial observations while the other obtained close-range passive acoustic measurements with an underwater recording hydrophone to better understand the behavioral contexts of call generation. Froiun-Mouy and her team detected call-type-specific source levels relative to behavior state through this dual-approach. For example, they were able to estimate the acoustic source levels of bubble-blasts produced by gray whales, and the double drone action recorded a variety of calls. Using two or more UAVs can provide a more integrated snapshot into the animal vocalization context, and it will be interesting to see whether this method is applied elsewhere on a variety of whale species.
Tara Sayuri Whitty discussed her doctoral research focused on understanding the mental models of local, artisanal fishing communities at the heart of the vaquita conservation efforts. The vaquita has experienced rapid population declines due primarily to bycatch in gillnet fisheries from legal local gillnet fisheries and the illegal totoaba fishery. With the sole intent of preventing bycatch, gillnets were banned for legal practice, but the illegal totoaba fishery continued, as did vaquita bycatch. Whitty conducted interviews to understand the mental models and perceptions of local fishing communities towards officials and conservationists regarding the gillnet band. She discovered that these conservation efforts have not only failed to prevent vaquita bycatch, but they have now pitted conservationists against local communities because an important aspect of their livelihoods is now banned. This misstep and lack of trust with the community now threatens future conservation and recovery progress for the vaquita and highlights the need to collaborate and engage with local communities early and often when such efforts are so closely tied to human well-being.
Pauline Goulet, a PhD student in the Sea Mammal Research Unit at the University of St. Andrews, presented findings obtained from a novel sonar tag deployed on southern elephant seals (SES) in the Kerguelen Islands and Peninsula Valdes. Gaining insight into predator-prey interactions is critical to understanding the ecology of marine mammals as they live in dynamic and vast environments where prey is patchy. Collecting in-situ prey information is difficult, and in some cases impossible, due to the remote locations where marine mammals forage and it is not being feasible to follow individuals around continuously to collect prey samples at every foraging event. In an attempt to overcome this universal challenge to marine mammal research, Goulet and her collaborators decided to mimic the experts in prey detection and visualization from a distance in the marine environment – echolocating odontocetes. By equipping conventional DTAGs with a 1.5 MHz single beam sonar with a 6 m detection range, Goulet was able to identify whether SES were pursuing individual fish or large schools of fish. Additionally, by also analyzing the accelerometer data, she could document whether prey capture attempts were successful or not, and link these results to the body condition of individual SES (inferred from the horizontal distance an individual traveled during drift dives, whereby a longer horizontal distance in the same period of time suggested that the individual had gained weight and was now heavier). It was ingenious to see researchers utilize a biological trait that evolved millions of years ago in certain marine mammal predators to better understand the ecology of another marine mammal predator.
A trio of talks given by Kristi Fazioli, Valeria Paz, and Shauna McBride-Kebert, in the ‘Habitat and Distribution II’ session, discussed responses of coastal bottlenose dolphins to hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM). Besides continuing to be an area of interest in conservation after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the GoM frequently experiences hurricanes and other strong storm systems that cause extensive flooding events annually. Hence, dolphins along the GoM coast experience a large outflow of freshwater after severe precipitation, leading to low salinity events. Both Fazioli and Paz hypothesized that these changes in environmental conditions can create health problems to the dolphins.
Bottlenose dolphin underwater in the Gulf of Mexico. Source: Mike Heithaus.
Fazioli investigated encounter rates and skin conditions of bottlenose dolphins after Hurricane Harvey. She found that, in 2017, the encounter rates in her study area decreased, while skin lesions increased (Christina Toms, unpublished work, expected Spring 2020). Skin lesions are known to occur at higher rates after exposure to freshwater and even though they persist for some time, they eventually do heal. After less than two years, preliminary data suggest that these dolphins have returned to their original distributions in the study area. Paz’s study in Shark Bay Estuary examined different environmental drivers of dolphin distribution following Hurricane Irma. She found that dissolved oxygen, salinity, and temperature were the primary dynamic, environmental drivers of distribution following a major hurricane. Lastly, McBride’s species distribution models of bottlenose dolphins in response to severe flooding concluded that depth, slope, latitude, longitude, season, and dissolved oxygen all contributed in different percentages to distribution.
Marta Guerra presented findings from her PhD research at the University of Otago in New Zealand on the ecology and distribution of sperm whales in New Zealand. Kaikoura canyon is a region utilized by sperm whales for foraging, and Marta’s research highlighted marked differences in their distribution between the summer and winter, likely reflective of the sperm whales switching their target prey items seasonally. In the middle of their data collection period, a very intense earthquake struck the region in 2016, causing a canyon-flushing event that altered the canyon ecosystem. The sperm whales responded to this extreme event by altering their distribution away from the areas most affected by the earthquake, demonstrating that these marine predators respond to environmental shifts in the ecosystem they depend on at multiple scales.
On the final day of the conference, David Wiley gave a talk entitled “First documentation of coordinated bottom-feeding by humpback whales”. Using footage from tags containing a suite of sensors and video cameras, Wiley and colleagues observed humpback whales feeding on sand lace in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Sand lace are a species of fish that frequently burrow in the sand in an attempt to avoid capture by predators looking for their next meal. Humpback whales in the area have been observed with lacerations and scars along their mouths, originally leading to the hypothesis that whales were bottom-feeding. However, it was never known whether whales compete or cooperate when exploiting this resource and what the actual mechanics of this feeding behavior look like. The tag data revealed that groups of 3-4 individuals work together to approach the seafloor in a star-shape formation and when they get close enough, the sand lace emerge from the sand (probably an escape response to the approaching vibrations created by large whales) only to be engulfed by the humpbacks who are poised directly above them with wide-open mouths. Not only did the video footage reveal that individuals are so close together that their rostrums are almost touching, but Wiley and team were able to determine that whales perform their behavior usually within the same group of 3-4 individuals and that the orientation of each individual within the star-formation remains the same almost every time. This talk was so enjoyable because it was a reminder of how little we still know about marine mammals and provided a moment of audible awe and surprise throughout the room.
By Lisa Hildebrand, MSc student, OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab
During the summer of 2017 I was an intern for Cascadia Research Collective (CRC), a non-profit organization based out of Olympia, Washington, that conducts research on marine mammal behavior, ecology, and population status along the western US coast and around Hawaii. My internship was primarily office-based and involved processing photographs of humpback and blue whales along the US west coast to add to CRC’s long-term photo-identification catalogues. However, I was asked to join a research project investigating the behavioral and physiological responses of four dolphin species in southern California (Fig. 1). The research project is a collaborative effort lead by Dr. Brandon Southall and involves researchers from CRC, Kelp Marine Research, NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center, and SR3. Since my internship with CRC, there have been three pilot efforts and one full field effort of this project, called the SOCAL Tagless Behavioral and Physiological Response Study (BPRS), and I have been a part of all of them.
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The marine environment is stressed out, and so are the millions of flora and fauna that inhabit the global ocean. Humans are a big contributor to this stress. During the last few decades, we have produced more and more things that have ended up in the ocean, whether by choice or by chance. Plastic pollution has become a pervasive and persistent problem, especially after the discovery that when large plastic items are exposed to UV light and seawater they break down into smaller pieces, termed micro- and nano-plastics (Jambeck et al. 2015). Increased demand for oil and gas to supply a growing human population has led to much more marine oil and gas exploration and exploitation (World Ocean Review 2013). Since 1985, global container shipping has increased by approximately 10% annually (World Ocean Review 2010) and it is estimated that global freight demand will triple by 2050 (International Transport Forum 2019). The list of impacts is long. Our impact on the earth, of which the ocean makes up 71%, has been so extreme that expert groups suggest that a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene – needs to be declared to define the time that we now find ourselves in and the impact humanity is having on the environment (Lewis and Maslin 2015). While this term has not been officially recognized, it is irrefutable that humans have and continue to alter ecosystems, impacting the organisms within them.
Noise is an impact often overlooked when thinking about anthropogenic effects in the marine environment, likely because we as humans do not hear much of what happens beneath the ocean surface. However, ocean noise is of particular concern for cetaceans as sound is their primary sense, both over long and short distances. Sound travels extremely efficiently underwater and therefore anthropogenic sounds can be propagated for thousands of kilometers or more (Weilgart 2007a). While it is widely agreed upon that anthropogenic noise is likely a significant stressor to cetaceans (Weilgart 2007b; Wright et al. 2007; Tyack 2008), very few studies have quantified their responses to noise to date. This knowledge gap is likely because behavioral and physiological responses to sound can be subtle, short-lived or slowly proliferate over time, hence making them hard to study. However, growing concern over this issue has resulted in more research into impacts of noise on marine mammals, including the GEMM Lab’s impacts of ocean noise on gray whales project.
The most extreme impact of sound exposure on marine mammals is death. Mass strandings of a few cetacean species have coincided in time and space with Navy sonar operations (Jepson et al. 2003; Fernández et al. 2005; Filadelfo et al. 2009). While fatal mass strandings of cetaceans are extremely troubling, they are a relatively rare occurrence. A cause for perhaps greater concern are sub-lethal changes in important behaviors such as feeding, social interactions, and avoidance of key habitat as a result of exposure to Navy sonar. All of these potential outcomes have raised interest within the U.S. Navy to better understand the responses of cetaceans to sonar.
The SOCAL Tagless BPRS is just one of several studies that has been funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research to improve our understanding of Navy sonar impact on cetaceans, in particular the sub-lethal effects described earlier. It builds upon knowledge and expertise gained from previous behavioral response studies led by Dr. Southall on a variety of marine mammal species, including beaked whales, baleen whales, and sperm whales. Those efforts included deploying tags on individual whales to obtain high-resolution movement and passive acoustic data paired with controlled exposure experiments (CEEs) during which simulated Navy mid-frequency active sonar (MFAS) or real Navy sonar were employed. Results from that multi-year effort have shown that for blue whales, responses generally only lasted for as long as the sound was active and highly dependent on exposure context such as behavioral state, prey availability and the horizontal distance between the sound source and the individual whale. Blue whales identified as feeding in shallow depths showed no changes in behavior, however over 50% of deep-feeding whales responded during CEEs (Southall et al. 2019).
The SOCAL Tagless BPRS, as the name implies, does not involve deploying tags on the animals. Tags were omitted from this study design because tags on dolphins have not had high success rates of staying on for a very long time. Furthermore, dolphins are social species that typically occur in groups and individuals within a group are likely to interact or react together when exposed to an external stimuli. Therefore, the project integrates established methods of quantifying dolphin behavior and physiology in a novel way to measure broad and fine-scale group and individual changes of dolphin behavior and physiology to simulated Navy MFAS or real Navy sonars using CEEs.
During these tagless CEEs, a dolphin group is tracked from multiple platforms using several different tools. Kelp Marine Research is our on-shore team that spots workable groups (workable meaning that a group should be within range of all platforms and not moving too quickly so that they will leave this range during the CEE), tracks the group using a theodolite (just like I do for my Port Orford gray whale project), and does focal follows to record behavior of the group over a period of time. Ziphiid, one of CRC’s RHIBs, is tasked with deploying three passive acoustic sensors to record sounds emitted by the dolphins and to measure the intensity of the sound of the simulated Navy MFAS or the real Navy sonars. Musculus, the second CRC RHIB, has a dual-function during CEEs; it holds the custom vertical line array sound source, which emits the simulated Navy MFAS, and it is also the ‘biopsy boat’ tasked with obtaining biopsy samples of individuals within the dolphin group to measure potential changes in stress hormone levels. And last but not least, the Magician, the third vessel on the water, serves as ‘home-base’ for the project (Fig. 3). Quite literally it is where the research team eats and sleeps, but it is also the spotting vessel from which visual observations occur, and it is the launch pad for the unmanned aerial system (UAS) used to measure potential changes in group composure, spacing, and speed of travel.
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The project involves a lot of moving parts and we are careful to conduct the research with explicit monitoring and mitigation requirements to ensure our work is carried out safely and ethically. These factors, as well as the fact that we are working with live, wild animals that we cannot ‘control’, are why three pilot efforts were necessary. Our first ‘official’ phase this past October was a success: in just eight days we conducted 11 CEEs. Six of these involved experimental sonar transmissions (two being from real Navy sonars dipped from hovering helicopters) and five were no-sonar controls that are critical to be able to experimentally associate sonar exposure with potential response. There are more phases to come in 2020 and 2021 and I look forward to continue working on such a collaborative project.
For more information on the project, you can visit Southall Environmental Associates project page, or read the blog posts written by Dr. Brandon Southall (this one or this one).
For anyone attending the World Marine Mammal Conference in Barcelona, Spain, there will be several talks related to this research:
Dr. Brandon Southall will be presenting on the Atlantic BRS on beaked whales and short-finned pilot whales on Wednesday, December 11 from 2:15 – 2:30 pm
Dr. Caroline Casey will be presenting on the experimental design and results of this SOCAL Tagless BPRS project on Wednesday, December 11 from 2:30 – 2:45 pm
All research is authorized under NMFS permits #16111, 19091, and 19116 as well as numerous Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and other federal, state, and local authorizations. More information is available upon request from the project chief scientist at Brandon.Southall@sea-inc.net.
Literature cited
Fernández, A., J. F. Edwards, F. Rodríguez, A. Espinosa de los Monteros, P. Herráez, P. Castro, J. R. Jaber, V. Martín, and M. Arbelo. 2005. “Gas and fat embolic syndrome” involving a mass stranding of beaked whales (Family Ziphiidae) exposed to anthropogenic sonar signals. Veterinary Pathology 42(4):446-457.
Filadelfo, R., J. Mintz, E. Michlovich, A. D’Amico, P. L. Tyack, and D. R. Ketten. 2009. Correlating military sonar use with beaked whale mass strandings: what do the historical data show? Aquatic Mammals 35(4):435-444.
Jambeck, J. R., R. Geyer, C. Wilcox, T. R. Siegler, M. Perryman, A. Andrady, R. Narayan, and K. L. Law. 2015. Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean. Science 347(6223):768-771.
Jepson, P. D., M. Arbelo, R. Deaville, I A. P. Patterson, P. Castro, J. R. Baker, E. Degollada, H. M. Ross, P. Herráez, A. M. Pocknell, F. Rodríguez, F. E. Howie II, A. Espinosa, R. J. Reid, J. R. Jaber, V. Martin, A. A. Cunningham, and A. Fernández. 2003. Gas-bubble lesions in stranded cetaceans. Nature 425:575.
Lewis, S. L., and M. A. Maslin. 2015. Defining the Anthropocene. Nature 519:171-180.
Southall, B. L., S. L. DeRuiter, A. Friedlaender, A. K. Stimpert, J. A. Goldbogen, E. Hazen, C. Casey, S. Fregosi, D. E. Cade, A. N. Allen, C. M. Harris, G. Schorr, D. Moretti, S. Guan, and J. Calambokidis. 2019. Behavioral responses of individual blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) to mid-frequency military sonar. Journal of Experimental Biology 222: doi. 10.1242/jeb.190637.
Tyack, P. L. 2008. Implications for marine mammals of large-scale changes in the marine acoustic environment. Journal of Mammalogy 89(3):549-558.
Weilgart, L. S. 2007a. The impacts of anthropogenic ocean noise on cetaceans and implications for management. Canadian Journal of Zoology 85(11):1091-1116.
Weilgart, L. S. 2007b. A brief review of known effects of noise on marine mammals. International Journal of Comparative Psychology 20(2):159-168.
Wright, A. J., N. A. Soto, A. L. Baldwin, M. Bateson, C. M. Beale, C. Clark, T. Deak, E. F. Edwards, A. Fernández, A. Godinho, L. T. Hatch, A. Kakuschke, D. Lusseau, D. Martineau, M. L. Romero, L. S. Weilgart, B. A. Wintle, G. Notarbartolo-di-Sciara, and V. Martin. Do marine mammals experience stress related to anthropogenic noise? International Journal of Comparative Psychology 20(2):274-316.
By: Alexa Kownacki, Ph.D. Student, OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab
When I first learned of the critically endangered vaquita in
early 2015, there were an estimated 97 individuals remaining as reported by CIRVA*
(Morell
2014). I was a recent graduate with a bachelor’s degree in Wildlife, Fish,
and Conservation Biology, and I, of all people, had never heard of the vaquita.
Today, there are an estimated 19 vaquita left (Roth 2019).
Digital painting of a vaquita mother with her calf (Image Source: Aquarium of the Pacific).
The vaquita (Phocoena sinus) is a small porpoise endemic to the Sea of Cortez in the northern region of the Gulf of California, Mexico. It is the most endangered marine mammal and has been for many years, and yet, I had not heard of the vaquita. It wasn’t until I listened to a lunchtime seminar hosted by NOAA Fisheries, that I heard about the porpoise. As a young scientist, “in the field”, I was shocked to realize that I was just learning about an animal, let alone a cetacean, actively going extinct in my lifetime. I believe it’s our job to inform those around us of news in our expertise, and I had failed. I wasn’t informed. As much as I tried in the past four years to describe the decline of the smallest cetacean to anyone who’d listen, I was only reaching a few people at a time. But, today, the vaquita is finally capturing the public’s eye thanks to celebrity support and a feature-length film.
A rare photo of a vaquita (Image Source: Tom Jefferson via the Marine Mammal Center)
From executive producer, Leonardo DiCaprio, comes the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award winner, “Sea of Shadows”. The story of the vaquita truly is an “eco-thriller” and one worth watching. This is not your typical plot line of an endangered species tragically going extinct without action. The vaquita’s story boasts big-name players, such as the Mexican Navy, internationally recognized scientists, Mexican cartels, Chinese mafia, celebrities, the National Marine Mammal Foundation, and Sea Shepherd. At the center of this documentary is the elusive vaquita. The vaquita is not hunted, in fact, this species is not desirable for fisherman. The animal is not aggressive and, in contrast, is notoriously shy, only surfacing to breathe. Furthermore, its name roughly translates into “little cow” because of the rings around its eyes and its docile nature. So, why is this cute creature on the road to extinction? The answer: the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Sea of Shadows” official trailer by National Geographic
The vaquita occupy a small part of the Sea of Cortez where totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi), a large fish in the drum family, is also endemic. If you’re wondering what a small porpoise and a large fish have in common, then you’d be close to recognizing that is the key to understanding this tragedy. Both species are roughly the same size, one to two meters in length with similar girths. The totoaba, although said to have tender meat, is caught for only one organ: the swim bladder. Now referred to as the “cocaine of the sea”, the dried swim bladders of the totoaba are sold to Mexican cartels who then export the product to China. Once in China, illegal markets sell the swim bladders for up to $100,000USD. Unfortunately, the nets used to illegally catch totoaba, also catch the vaquita. The porpoise has no economic value to the fishermen and therefore are tossed as bycatch. The vaquita is the innocent bystander in a war for money and power.
A man displays the catch from an illegal gillnet, including the totoaba in his arms, and a vaquita, below, that was bycatch (Image Source: Omar Vidal via Aquarium of the Pacific/NOAA Fisheries).
Watching a charismatic species severely decline because of human greed is horrific. The film, however, focuses on the effort of a few incredible organizations that band together in the fight to save the vaquita. Moreover, the multimillion-dollar project, Vaquita CPR, is still ongoing. On a more positive note, in October of 2019, scientists spotted six vaquita during continued conservation and monitoring efforts (Blust & Desk 2019). The path to saving a critically endangered species, especially one that is thought not to do well in captivity, is challenging. The vaquita’s recovery path has many complicated connections which for what appears to be an uphill battle. But, we, the people, are responsible for this. We must support research and conservation by using our voice to share what is happening, for a porpoise and for the world.
*Comité Internacional para la Recuperación de la Vaquita (International
Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita)
Citations:
Blust, Kendal,
and Fronteras Desk. “Photo Sparks Increased Concern over Fishing in Vaquita
Refuge.” Arizona Public Media, 25 Oct. 2019,
https://news.azpm.org/p/news-topical-nature/2019/10/25/160806-photo-sparks-increased-concern-over-fishing-in-vaquita-refuge/.
Morell,
Virginia. “Vaquita Porpoise Faces Imminent Extinction-Can It Be Saved?” National Geographic, 15 Aug. 2014,
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/8/140813-vaquita-gulf-california-mexico-totoaba-gillnetting-china-baiji/.
Roth, Annie.
“The ‘Little Cow’ of the Sea Nears Extinction.” National Geographic, 17 Sept. 2019,
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/09/vaquita-the-porpoise-familys-smallest-member-nears-extinction/#close.
1Masters Student in Marine Resource Management, 2Doctoral Student in Integrative Biology
Five years ago, the North Pacific Ocean
experienced a sudden increase in sea surface temperature (SST), known as the
warm blob, which altered marine ecosystem function and structure (Leising et
al. 2015). Much research illustrated how the warm blob impacted pelagic
ecosystems, with relatively less focused on the nearshore environment. Yet, a
new study demonstrated how rising ocean temperatures have partially led to
bull kelp loss in northern California. Unfortunately, we are once again observing
similar warming trends, representing the second largest marine heatwave
over recent decades, and signaling the potential rise of a second warm blob. Taken
together, all these findings could forecast future warming-related ecosystem
shifts in Oregon, highlighting the need for scientists and managers to consider
strategies to prevent future kelp loss, such as reintroducing sea otters.
In northern California, researchers observed a dramatic
ecosystem shift from productive bull kelp forests to purple sea urchin barrens.
The study, led by Dr. Laura Rogers-Bennett from the University of California,
Davis and California Department of Fish and Wildlife, determined that this
shift was caused by multiple climatic and biological stressors. Beginning in
2013, sea star populations were decimated by sea star wasting
disease (SSWD). Sea stars are a main predator of urchins, causing their
absence to release purple urchins from predation pressure. Then, starting in
2014, ocean temperatures spiked with the warm blob. These two events created
nutrient-poor conditions, which limited kelp growth and productivity, and allowed
purple urchin populations to grow unchecked by predators and increase grazing
on bull kelp. The combined effect led to approximately 90% reductions in bull
kelp, with a reciprocal 60-fold increase in purple urchins (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Kelp loss and ecosystem shifts in northern California (Rogers-Bennett & Catton 2019).
These changes have wrought economic challenges as
well as ecological collapse in Northern California. Bull kelp is important habitat
and food source for several species of economic importance including red
abalone and red sea urchins (Tegner & Levin 1982). Without bull kelp, red
abalone and red sea urchin populations have starved, resulting in the subsequent
loss of the recreational red abalone ($44 million) and commercial red sea
urchin fisheries in Northern California. With such large kelp reductions,
purple urchins are also now in a starved state, evidenced by noticeably smaller
gonads (Rogers-Bennett & Catton 2019).
Biogeographically, southern Oregon is very similar
to northern California, as both are composed of complex rocky substrates and
shorelines, bull kelp canopies, and benthic macroinvertebrates (i.e. sea
urchins, abalone, etc.). Because Oregon was also impacted by the 2014-2015 warm
blob and SSWD, we might expect to see a similar coastwide kelp forest loss
along our southern coastline. The story is more complicated than that, however.
For instance, ODFW
has found purple urchin barrens where almost no kelp remains in some
localized places. The GEMM Lab has video footage of purple urchins climbing up
kelp stalks to graze within one of these barrens near Port Orford, OR (Figure 2,
left). In her study, Dr. Rogers-Bennett explains that this aggressive sea
urchin feeding strategy is potentially a sign of food limitation, where
high-density urchin populations create intense resource competition. Conversely,
at sites like Lighthouse Reef (~45 km from Port Orford) outside Charleston, OR,
OSU and University of Oregon divers are currently seeing flourishing bull kelp
forests. Urchins at this reef have fat, rich gonads, which is an indicator of
high-quality nutrition (Figure 2, right).
Satellites can detect kelp on the surface of the
water, giving scientists a way to track kelp extent over time. Preliminary
results from Sara Hamilton’s Ph.D. thesis research finds that while some kelp
forests have shrunk in past years, others are currently bigger than ever in the
last 35 years. It is not clear what is driving this spatial variability in
urchin and kelp populations, nor why southern Oregon has not yet faced the same
kind of coastwide kelp forest collapse as northern California. Regardless, it
is likely that kelp loss in both northern California and southern Oregon may be
triggered and/or exacerbated by rising temperatures.
Figure 2. Left: Purple urchin aggressive grazing near Port Orford, OR (GEMM Lab 2019). Right: Flourishing bull kelp near Charleston, OR (Sara Hamilton 2019).
The reintroduction of sea otters has been proposed
as a solution to combat rising urchin populations and bull kelp loss in Oregon.
From an ecological perspective, there is some validity to this idea. Sea otters
are a voracious urchin predator that routinely reduce urchin populations and
alleviate herbivory on kelp (Estes & Palmisano 1974). Such restoration and
protection of bull kelp could help prevent red abalone and red sea urchin starvation.
Additionally, restoring apex predators and increasing species richness is often
linked to increased ecosystem resilience, which is particularly important in
the face of global anthropogenic change (Estes et al. 2011)
While sea otters could alleviate grazing pressure
on Oregon’s bull kelp, this idea only looks at the issue from a top-down, not bottom-up,
perspective. Sea otters require a lot of food (Costa 1978, Reidman & Estes
1990), and what they eat will always be a function of prey availability and
quality (Ostfeld 1982). Just because urchins are available, doesn’t mean otters
will eat them. In fact, sea otters prefer large and heavy (i.e. high gonad
content) urchins (Ostfeld 1982). In the field, researchers have observed sea
otters avoiding urchins at the center of urchin barrens (personal
communication), presumably because those urchins have less access to kelp beds than
on the barren periphery, and therefore, are constantly in a starved state (Konar
& Estes 2003) (Figure 3). These findings suggest prey quality is more
important to sea otter survival than just prey abundance.
Purple urchin quality has not been widely assessed
in Oregon, but early results show that gonad size varies widely depending on
urchin density and habitat type. In places where urchin barrens have formed,
like Port Orford, purple urchins are likely starving and thus may be a poor
source of nutrition for sea otters. Before we decide whether sea otters are a
viable tool to combat kelp loss, prey surveys may need to be conducted to
assess if a sea otter population could be sustained based on their caloric
requirements. Furthermore, predictions of how these prey populations may change
due to rising temperatures could help determine the potential for sea otters to
become reestablished in Oregon under rapid environmental change.
Recent events in California could signal
climate-driven processes that are already impacting some parts of Oregon and could
become more widespread. Dr. Rogers-Bennett’s study is valuable as she has quantified
and described ecosystem changes that might occur along Oregon’s southern
coastline. The resurgence of a potential second warm blob and the frequency
between these warming events begs the question if such temperature spikes are
still anomalous or becoming the norm. If the latter, we could see more
pronounced kelp loss and major shifts in nearshore ecosystem baselines, where function
and structure is permanently altered. Whether reintroducing sea otters can
prevent these changes will ultimately depend on prey and habitat availability
and quality, and should be carefully considered.
References:
Costa, D. P. 1978. The ecological energetics,
water, and electrolyte balance of the California sea otter (Enhydra lutris).
Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Estes, J. A. and J.F. Palmisano. 1974. Sea
otters: their role in structuring nearshore communities. Science. 185(4156):
1058-1060.
Estes et al. 2011. Trophic downgrading of planet Earth. Science. 333(6040): 301-306.
Harvell et al. 2019. Disease epidemic and a
marine heat wave are associated with the continental-scale collapse of a
pivotal predator (Pycnopodia helianthoides). Science Advances.
5(1).
Konar, B., and J. A. Estes. 2003. The stability of
boundary regions between kelp beds and deforested areas. Ecology. 84(1):
174-185.
Leising et al. 2015. State of California Current
2014-2015: impacts of the warm-water “blob”. CalCOFI Reports. (56):
31-68.
Ostfeld, R. S. 1982. Foraging strategies and prey
switching in the California sea otter. Oecologia. 53(2):
170-178.
Reidman, M. L. and J. A. Estes. 1990. The sea
otter (Enhydra lutris): behavior, ecology, and natural history. United
States Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, Biological
Report. 90: 1-126.
Rogers-Bennett, L., and C. A. Catton. 2019. Marine
heat wave and multiple stressors tip bull kelp forest to sea urchin barrens. Scientific
Reports. 9:15050.
Tegner, M. J., and L. A. Levin. 1982. Do sea
urchins and abalones compete in California? International Echinoderms
Conference, Tampa Bay. J. M Lawrence, ed.
By Leila S. Lemos, Ph.D. candidate in Wildlife Sciences, Fisheries and Wildlife Department
What did you do when playing hide-and-seek? You would try your best not to move or make any noise that would cause the seeker to hear you and find you, right? So, I always associated the prey-predator relationship to a hide-and-seek game, where prey hide, and predators seek. Thus, if you are the prey in this food chain game you should try to hide and not make any noise.
I read an article last week that made me think of this relationship again. The article, “Right whale moms ‘whisper’ to their babies so sharks won’t hear”, announced the study findings from Susan E. Parks and collaborators (2019), which really called my attention.
To give some context, North Atlantic Right Whales (NARWs; Eubalaena glacialis; Fig. 1) occur primarily in northern Atlantic coastal waters or close to the continental shelf (Fig. 2), yet their presence in deep waters are also known (NOAA 2019).
Figure 1: A mother-calf pair of North Atlantic right whales. Source: Dana Cusano, Syracuse University (NMFS Permit #775-1875); retrieved from Kooser 2019.
Figure 2: North Atlantic right whale distribution. Source: NOAA 2019.
The species is critically endangered and estimated at less than 500 individuals (IUCN 2007, Pace et al. 2017). Unlike several other whale populations, NARWs have not rebounded from intense whaling, and its population has begun to decrease since 2010 (Thomas et al. 2016, Pace et al. 2017). NARWs’ biggest threats are associated with anthropogenic activities, including entanglement in fishing lines and collisions with vessels (Fig. 3).
Figure 3: North Atlantic right whales’ biggest threats: (A) entanglement in fishing gear, and (B) vessel collision. Source (A): Peter Duley (NOAA), retrieved from Guy 2017; (B) Williams 2019.
Other than anthropogenic impacts, NARWs also face natural threats like predation. There are reports on newborn and young right whale calf’s predation by killer whales and large sharks (Taylor et al. 2013, Parks et al. 2019; Fig. 4).
Figure 4: Mother carries her calf carcass presenting two semicircular shark bite marks on its flank. Source: Taylor et al. 2013.
Whales communicate by acoustic signals that can efficiently propagate underwater and be detected by listening predators (Parks et al. 2019). It is possible that mother-calf pairs may use cryptic behaviors to avoid the attention of predators by shifting their communication patterns, leading to a hypothesis that they produce low-amplitude calls and lower call rates (Tyack 2000; Fig. 5). These two behavioral modifications have been previously observed in mother-calf pairs of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae; Videsen et al. 2017) and southern right whales (Eubalaena australis; Nielsen et al. 2019).
Figure 5: Spectrogram and waveform of a single pulse (low amplitude) and an upcall (high amplitude) produced by a right whale. A louder and longer signal (high-amplitude call) is potentially easier to detect by predators. Source: Parks et al. 2019.
In order to determine if NARWs exhibited the same behavior, Parks and collaborators (2019) tagged lactating and non-lactating females, and a pregnant female that later was tagged again with her calf, to collect acoustic, movement and orientation data. Their results indicate that lactating females use a significantly higher low-amplitude call rate (mean ± standard deviation: 7.13 ± 2.0 calls) when compared to high-amplitude calls (0.88 ± 0.70 calls). In contrast, non-lactating females exhibited higher rates of high-amplitude calls (3.21 ± 2.29 calls) and lower rates of calls of low-amplitude (0.80 ± 1.15 calls).
Even though their sample size was small (n = 16), the authors had more lactating females sampled than the other demographic groups (n = 11), and their results provide evidence that right whale mother-calf pairs exhibit a shift in their repertoire: Mother-calf pairs reduce high-amplitude calls as compared with other demographic groups in the same habitat (Fig. 6).
Figure 6: Proportion of high and low-amplitude calls by both lactating and non-lactating female right whales on the calving grounds located in the southeastern United States. Source: Parks et al. 2019.
According to Dr. Parks, these low-amplitude sounds are analogous with human whispers (Kooser, 2019). This ‘whispering’ is a behavioral adaptation that allows communication between mother and calf without drawing the attention of undesirable predators.
Such an adaptation may seem obvious to us when we think back of our hide-and-seek game, but documentation of little details of the cryptic lives of whales is unique and fascinating. We still don’t know so much about the lives of whales, so determining adaptations, behavioral and physiological changes, and other simple features like “whispering” are crucial for us to better understand the ‘whale world’ and be able to enhance conservation efforts.
Pace III RM, Corkeron PJ, Kraus SD. 2017. State-space mark-recapture estimates reveal a recent decline in abundance of North Atlantic right whales. Ecology and Evolution 7:8730–8741.
Parks SE, Cusano DA, Van Parijs SM, Nowacek DP. 2019. Acoustic crypsis in communication by North Atlantic right whale mother-calf pairs on the calving grounds. Biology Letters 15:20190485.
Taylor JKD, Mandelman JW, McLellan WA, Moore MJ, Skomal GB, Rotstein DS, Kraus SD. 2013. Shark predation on North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) in the southeastern United States calving ground. Marine Mammal Science 29(1): 204–212.
Thomas PO, Reeves RR, Brownell RL. 2016. Status of the world baleen whales. Marine Mammal Science 32:682–734.
Tyack PL. 2000. Functional aspects of cetacean communication. In Cetacean societies: field studies of dolphins and whales (eds J Mann, RC Connor, PL Tyack, H Whitehead), pp. 270–307. Chicago, IL:University of Chicago Press.
Videsen SKA, Bejder L, Johnson M, Madsen PT. 2017. High suckling rates and acoustic crypsis of humpback whale neonates maximise potential for mother-calf energy transfer. Funct. Ecol. 31:1561–1573.
By Clara Bird, Masters Student, OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab
Hi everyone! My name is Clara Bird and I am
the newest graduate student in the GEMM lab. For my master’s thesis I will be
using drone footage of gray whales to study their foraging ecology. I promise
to talk about how cool gray whales in a following blog post, but for my first effort
I am choosing to write about something that I have wanted to explain for a
while: algorithms. As part of previous research projects, I developed a few semi-automated
image analysis algorithms and I have always struggled with that jargon-filled
phrase. I remember being intimidated by the term algorithm and thinking that I
would never be able to develop one. So, for my first blog I thought that I
would break down what goes into image analysis algorithms and demystify a term
that is often thrown around but not well explained.
What is an algorithm?
The dictionary broadly defines an
algorithm as “a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing
some end” (Merriam-Webster). Imagine an algorithm as a flow chart (Fig. 1), where
each step is some process that is applied to the input(s) to get the desired
output. In image analysis the output is usually isolated sections of the image
that represent a specific feature; for example, isolating and counting the
number of penguins in an image. Algorithm development involves figuring out
which processes to use in order to consistently get desired results. I have
conducted image analysis previously and these processes typically involve figuring
out how to find a certain cutoff value. But, before I go too far down that
road, let’s break down an image and the characteristics that are important for
image analysis.
Figure 1. An example of a basic algorithm flow chart. There are two inputs: variables A and B. The process is the calculation of the mean of the two variables.
What is an image?
Think of an image as a spread sheet,
where each cell is a pixel and each pixel is assigned a value (Fig. 2). Each
value is associated with a color and when the sheet is zoomed out and viewed as
a whole, the image comes together. In
color imagery, which is also referred to as RGB, each pixel is associated with
the values of the three color bands (red, green, and blue) that make up that
color. In a thermal image, each pixel’s value is a temperature value. Thinking
about an image as a grid of values is helpful to understand the challenge of
translating the larger patterns we see into something the computer can interpret.
In image analysis this process can involve using the values of the pixels
themselves or the relationships between the values of neighboring pixels.
Our brains take in the whole
picture at once and we are good at identifying the objects and patterns in an
image. Take Figure 3 for example: an astute human eye and brain can isolate and
identify all the different markings and scars on the fluke. Yet, this process
would be very time consuming. The trick to building an algorithm to conduct
this work is figuring out what processes or tools are needed to get a computer
to recognize what is marking and what is not. This iterative process is the algorithm
development.
Figure 3. Photo ID image of a gray whale fluke.
Development
An image analysis algorithm will
typically involve some sort of thresholding. Thresholds are used to classify an
image into groups of pixels that represent different characteristics. A
threshold could be applied to the image in Figure 3 to separate the white color
of the markings on the fluke from the darker colors in the rest of the image.
However, this is an oversimplification, because while it would be pretty simple
to examine the pixel values of this image and pick a threshold by hand, this threshold
would not be applicable to other images. If a whale in another image is a
lighter color or the image is brighter, the pixel values would be different
enough from those in the previous image for the threshold to inaccurately
classify the image. This problem is why a lot of image analysis algorithm
development involves creating parameterized processes that can calculate the
appropriate threshold for each image.
One successful method used to
determine thresholds in images is to first calculate the frequency of color in
each image, and then apply the appropriate threshold. Fletcher et al. (2009)
developed a semiautomated algorithm to detect scars in seagrass beds from
aerial imagery by applying an equation to a histogram of the values in each
image to calculate the threshold. A histogram is a plot of the frequency of
values binned into groups (Fig. 4). Essentially, it shows how many times each value
appears in an image. This information can be used to define breaks between
groups of values. If the image of the fluke were transformed to a gray scale, then
the values of the marking pixels would be grouped around the value for white
and the other pixels would group closer to black, similar to what is shown in
Figure 4. An equation can be written that takes this frequency information and
calculates where the break is between the groups. Since this method calculates
an individualized threshold for each image, it’s a more reliable method for
image analysis. Other characteristics could also be used to further filter the
image, such as shape or area.
However, that approach is not the
only way to make an algorithm applicable to different images; semi-automation
can also be helpful. Semi-automation involves some kind of user input. After
uploading the image for analysis, the user could also provide the threshold, or
the user could crop the image so that only the important components were maintained.
Keeping with the fluke example, the user could crop the image so that it was
only of the fluke. This would help reduce the variety of colors in the image
and make it easier to distinguish between dark whale and light marking.
Figure 4. Example histogram of pixel values. Source: Moallem et al. 2012
Why algorithms are important
Algorithms are helpful because they
make our lives easier. While it would be possible for an analyst to identify
and digitize each individual marking from a picture of a gray whale, it would
be extremely time consuming and tedious. Image analysis algorithms significantly
reduce the time it takes to process imagery. A semi-automated algorithm that I
developed to count penguins from still drone imagery can count all the penguins
on a one km2 island in about 30 minutes, while it took me 24 long hours
to count them by hand (Bird et al. in prep). Furthermore, the process
can be repeated with different imagery and analysts as part of a time series
without bias because the algorithm eliminates human error introduced by
different analysts.
Whether it’s a simple combination
of a few processes or a complex series of equations, creating an algorithm requires
breaking down a task to its most basic components. Development involves
translating those components step by step into an automated process, which after
many trials and errors, achieves the desired result. My first algorithm project
took two years of revising, improving, and countless trials and errors. So, whether creating an algorithm or working
to understand one, don’t let the jargon nor the endless trials and errors stop
you. Like most things in life, the key is to have patience and take it one step
at a time.
References
Bird, C. N., Johnston, D.W., Dale, J. (in prep).
Automated counting of Adelie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) on Avian and
Torgersen Island off the Western Antarctic Peninsula using Thermal and
Multispectral Imagery. Manuscript in preparation
Fletcher, R. S., Pulich, W. ‡, & Hardegree, B. (2009). A Semiautomated Approach for Monitoring Landscape Changes in Texas Seagrass Beds from Aerial Photography. https://doi.org/10.2112/07-0882.1
Moallem, Payman & Razmjooy, Navid. (2012). Optimal Threshold Computing in Automatic Image Thresholding using Adaptive Particle Swarm Optimization. Journal of Applied Research and Technology. 703.
By Dominique Kone, Masters Student in Marine Resource
Management
To succeed as a scientist, you not only need to be
well-trained in the scientific method, but also be familiar with the standards
and practices in your discipline. While many scientists are skilled in the
production of scientific information, fewer are as well-prepared to disseminate
and communicate that information to diverse audiences. As a graduate student,
learning effective science communication is one of my top priorities because I
believe scientific information can and should be accessible to everyone. As
I’ve been building and expanding upon my own communication toolbox, I
constantly ask myself, what is effective science communication?
Simply put, communication can be thought of as the two-way transfer of information and knowledge. On one side, information is broadcasted and amplified out into the world, and on the other side, that information is received and understood, ideally. If communicating were this easy, people would never have to worry about being misinterpreted. Yet, this ideal is far from reality, and information is oftentimes misconstrued and/or ignored. This scenario is quite common when scientists communicate technical concepts or findings to non-scientists, either due to differences in communication styles or terminology use. In connecting with these types of audiences, I think effective science communication is a function of three key qualities: intentionality, creativity, and knowledge.
Source: ISTOCKPHOTO/THINKSTOCK
Intentionality
When scientists communicate information, being intentional with what they say and when they say it, can greatly influence how messages resonate with their audience. There’s often a big disconnect between the very specific scientific terms scientists use and the terms their non-technical audiences use. One way scientists can bridge this disconnect and be more intentional (thoughtful), is with word-choice. When scientists change their words, this doesn’t mean they “dumb down” their presentations; rather, they substitute words to better explain concepts in terms the audience easily understands. For example, if I tell the public “I’m predicting sea otter populations at carrying capacity in Oregon using a Bayesian habitat model”, this sentence has three jargon words (carrying capacity, Bayesian, model) that likely mean nothing to this audience. Instead, what I say is, “I’m predicting how many sea otters could live in Oregon based on available habitat”. Now I’m speaking in terms that resonate with my audience, and I have effectively made the same point. An intentional science communicator knows how to deliver information to meet their audience’s ability to take in and process that information.
Source: Andrew Grossman
Creativity
Scientists typically follow structured and defensible
protocols when conducting analyses. Far fewer standards apply to how they
communicate that research, which can free them up to be more creative in their
delivery. One way scientists can be both intentional and creative is by using analogies,
examples, or metaphors. When I give talks, I always talk about the high
metabolism of sea otters (30% of their own body weight in food, daily) (Costa
1978, Riedman & Estes 1990). Most researchers seem intrigued by this fact,
but anyone younger than the age of 10, honestly, could care less. To catch
their attention, I always follow up this fact by estimating how many pizza
slices I would need to eat to reach that daily food requirement, based on my
own weight (230 pizza slices, if you’re curious). By using this analogy, my young
audience not only understands my point, but they’re now way more interested
because they can’t fathom a human eating that much pizza. It’s a simple
comparison, but effective.
Creativity can also be applied to the different ways scientific information is delivered. Scientists regularly publish their work in peer-review scientific journals to reach other scientists. But they also produce short reports and fact sheets to briefly summarize studies for managers or policy-makers. They hold events or workshops to engage stakeholders. They use blogs, webpages, and YouTube to reach the broader public. They even use Twitter to share papers! Scientists do so much more than just publishing their work, and they have several options for delivering and communicating their research. All these different options create more opportunities for scientists to experiment and find new and exciting ways to deliver their science.
A stoic scientist communicating to the masses. Source: Dave Allen via NIWA.
Knowledge
It’s important for scientists to be knowledgeable about
their subjects when communicating, but they can’t know everything. Rather, I
think a more reasonable goal is for scientists to be comfortable and prepared
to say what they know and what they don’t know. Scientists have a thirst for
knowledge, but some communicate false information because they have a drive to
answer every question they’re asked. They can sometimes get into trouble when they’re
asked to talk about something they’re less familiar with. When asked a
difficult question, I’ve witnessed a lot of scientists say, “I don’t know”, or,
“I don’t know, but I could speculate [insert answer] based on other information”.
This response allows them to answer the
question, while also being truthful. The alternative could have real negative
implications (e.g. a certain President spreading
false information about a dangerous hurricane).
Aside from factual knowledge, contextual knowledge is underappreciated in science communication, but can be vitally important. Some management issues are politically contentious, and effective science communicators can play vital roles in those management processes or actions. One study found that by scientists engaging with stakeholders in the planning process for renewable energy development along the coast of Maine, community members felt the development planning process was being conducted in the most effective manner (Johnson et al. 2015). In this example, a seemingly contentious situation was defused because scientists understood the political and social landscape, and were able to carefully communicate with stakeholders before any management actions took place. Scientists are not required to engage with stakeholders to this degree, but being sensitive to the broader (political, social, cultural, economic) environment in which those stakeholders live and operate can help them better target your messages and relieve potential tension.
These three qualities (intentionality, creativity, and
knowledge) are not meant to serve as hard, fast science communication rules.
Instead, these are simply some qualities I’ve observed in other scientists
skilled in effective communication. Scientists don’t automatically enter this
space as expert communicators. For those that are great at it, it probably took
some time and practice to hone their skills and find their own voice. It might
come more naturally to some scientists, but I would argue most – like myself – have
to work really hard to develop those skills. As I progress through my career, I’m
excited to develop my own skills in effective science communication, and perhaps
discover new and exciting approaches along the way.
References:
Costa, D. P. 1978. The ecological energetics, water, and
electrolyte balance of the California sea otter (Enhydra lutris). Ph.D.
dissertation, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Reidman, M. L. and J. A. Estes. 1990. The sea otter (Enhydra
lutris): behavior, ecology, and natural history. United States Department of
the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, Biological Report. 90: 1-126.
Johnson, T. R., Jansujwiez, J. S., and G. Zydlewski. 2015.
Tidal power development n Maine: stakeholder identification and perceptions of
engagement. Estuaries and Coasts 38: S266-S278.
