{"id":4873,"date":"2022-10-24T13:51:40","date_gmt":"2022-10-24T20:51:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/?p=4873"},"modified":"2022-10-25T11:00:51","modified_gmt":"2022-10-25T18:00:51","slug":"%ef%bf%bc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/2022\/10\/24\/%ef%bf%bc\/","title":{"rendered":"The Who\u2019s Who of the fin whale seas: Defining specific large whale populations by their acoustic call rates."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Imogen Lucciano, Graduate student, OSU Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, & Conservation Sciences, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fin whales. Photo credit: https:\/\/www.futurismo.pt\/blog\/wildlife\/is-the-fin-whale-endangered\/. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One year ago, I packed up my 11-year-old daughter, Mavis (for the purposes of this blog, I\u2019ll refer to her as \u201cmy sidekick\u201d), our two dogs, and all our books and we moved to Oregon<\/a>. I was thrilled to arrive and begin my graduate studies in cetacean ecology and bioacoutics with the GEMM lab<\/a> and the Marine Mammal Institute<\/a>. It has not been an easy set of tasks to achieve high standards in graduate school while maintaining a constant presence as a single mother, but I am honestly having the time of my life. I am involved in an amazing graduate program and I get to do it with my sidekick cheering me on and making my life feel very whole. This is why I am excited to write this blog reporting on the progression of my thesis and the incredible animals that I have the pleasure of studying: the fin whale.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus)<\/em> are the second largest cetacean on the planet and are present in nearly all temperate and polar oceanic regions of the world (1). For my master\u2019s thesis, I will focus solely on the fin whales within a detectable range of our team’s research area<\/a> off the Oregon coast. In the Northern Hemisphere, fin whales are known to grow up to 23 meters in length and weigh up to 40-50 metric tons (2). They have a slender profile and can be further identified by their hook-shaped dorsal fin in addition to a V-shape on their back referred to as a \u201cchevron\u201d (Fig. 1). Fin whales are a baleen whale in the rorqual family, which have adapted lunge feeding as their primary foraging method (3). This species of whales is also classified as endangered (1), making them a key focal species for research in our modern times of shifting conditions in ocean environments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 1. Fin whale denoting a clear depiction of the V-shaped chevron. Photo credit: https:\/\/www.adrianabasques.com\/water\/ocean-giants\/43<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Although I am working to correlate the acoustic detections of fin whales across space and time with environmental drivers (like temperature and chlorophyll concentration), as an aspiring cetacean bioacoustician, one of my other burning related questions is: How can fin whale vocalizations be utilized to differentiate populations across the oceans? Perhaps my analysis of fin whales off the Oregon coast can contribute to the pool of researchers studying this species worldwide to help understand drivers of fin whale vocalization variability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fin whales can travel great distances, yet their unique vocal renditions of repetitive pulse calls at either a 20 Hz or 40 Hz frequency have geographic patterns (4). These renditions are stereotyped by inter-pulse interval (IPI), which is the rate at which the pulses are detected (5). What\u2019s even more interesting is that unlike many other large baleen whale species, there is little evidence of seasonal behavior and vocalization patterns (5) (Figs. 2 & 3). This suggests that fin whales might not make repetitive annual migrations to accommodate foraging and reproduction. Are these animals prey driven with exemplary senses for finding prey over incredibly large distances in the ocean? Are fin whales consistently present off the Oregon coast? What are their names? Bob, Lucinda, Frederick? There is much to ponder here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 2. Fin whale 20 Hz calls patterns off the coast of Hawaii, showing a unique A and B call rendition with an IPI of ~ “`25 seconds (6). <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 3. Fin whale 20 Hz calls identified in the Northeastern Pacific with varying observable patterns and IPI between the years 2003 – 2013 (7). <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This past summer the Holistic Assessment of Living marine resources off Oregon <\/em>(HALO) team<\/a> recovered its first six months of continuously collected acoustic data<\/a> from three hydrophones moored at designated source locations off the Newport coast. Around the same time, I transplanted my sidekick and myself in Ithaca, New York for the summer, so I could spend my summer days learning to identify and log baleen whale calls among other acousticians at the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics<\/a> at Cornell University. This work would contribute to my preparation for the analysis of the HALO acoustic data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was less than a month into this work when my sidekick ended up spending an entire week with us in the lab because the counselors at her summer camp all caught COVID-19. My sidekick is a dedicated book worm and had no problem keeping herself busy while we all worked, however, she is young and vivacious and so she would often share her music and jokes with the group. I recall (with an uncontrollable smirk on my face) one of her songs called the \u201cOof\u201d song (Video 1), that is literally a repetitive beat with the onomatopoeia, \u201coof\u201d being played over and over again. When it started playing I looked up from my computer to see a row of researchers sitting next to Mavis all bobbing their heads to the repetitive tone of \u201coof\u201d, a tone that hilariously reminded us of a sped-up version of the repetitive pulse of fin whale song. From that point on, \u201coof\u201d has involuntarily become a part of our language among this group of acousticians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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