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Effects of sea ice on growth rates of an endangered population of gray whales

The western gray whale population is endangered with approximately 175 individuals and 33 known reproductive females. Photo-identification studies were conducted from 2002–2017 during the gray whale foraging season off northeastern Sakhalin Island, Russia. Despite abundant prey resources, significan...

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Autores principales: Gailey, G., Sychenko, O., Tyurneva, O., Yakovlev, Y., Vertyankin, V., van der Wolf, P., Drozdov, K., Zhmaev, I.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6994479/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32005947
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-58435-3
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author Gailey, G.
Sychenko, O.
Tyurneva, O.
Yakovlev, Y.
Vertyankin, V.
van der Wolf, P.
Drozdov, K.
Zhmaev, I.
author_facet Gailey, G.
Sychenko, O.
Tyurneva, O.
Yakovlev, Y.
Vertyankin, V.
van der Wolf, P.
Drozdov, K.
Zhmaev, I.
author_sort Gailey, G.
collection PubMed
description The western gray whale population is endangered with approximately 175 individuals and 33 known reproductive females. Photo-identification studies were conducted from 2002–2017 during the gray whale foraging season off northeastern Sakhalin Island, Russia. Despite abundant prey resources, significant variation in whales’ body condition, inter-birth intervals and calf survival have been documented with limited understanding of factors that account for the observed variability. We examine sea ice concentrations at their known foraging grounds to define the maximum duration of a “foraging season”. We explore the relationship between foraging season length during a female’s pregnancy and post-weaning calf survival and reproduction. Approximately 77% of the variation in calf survival, which ranged annually from 10–80%, was associated with the duration of the feeding season while the mother was pregnant. Poor body conditions and prolonged inter-birth intervals of western gray whales have also been documented to coincide with shorter duration in feeding seasons found in this study. These results imply that shorter foraging seasons are associated with reduced energy intake by physically limiting the number of days gray whales can forage, and thus sea ice conditions may be one limiting factor affecting growth rates of this endangered population of baleen whales.
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spelling pubmed-69944792020-02-06 Effects of sea ice on growth rates of an endangered population of gray whales Gailey, G. Sychenko, O. Tyurneva, O. Yakovlev, Y. Vertyankin, V. van der Wolf, P. Drozdov, K. Zhmaev, I. Sci Rep Article The western gray whale population is endangered with approximately 175 individuals and 33 known reproductive females. Photo-identification studies were conducted from 2002–2017 during the gray whale foraging season off northeastern Sakhalin Island, Russia. Despite abundant prey resources, significant variation in whales’ body condition, inter-birth intervals and calf survival have been documented with limited understanding of factors that account for the observed variability. We examine sea ice concentrations at their known foraging grounds to define the maximum duration of a “foraging season”. We explore the relationship between foraging season length during a female’s pregnancy and post-weaning calf survival and reproduction. Approximately 77% of the variation in calf survival, which ranged annually from 10–80%, was associated with the duration of the feeding season while the mother was pregnant. Poor body conditions and prolonged inter-birth intervals of western gray whales have also been documented to coincide with shorter duration in feeding seasons found in this study. These results imply that shorter foraging seasons are associated with reduced energy intake by physically limiting the number of days gray whales can forage, and thus sea ice conditions may be one limiting factor affecting growth rates of this endangered population of baleen whales. Nature Publishing Group UK 2020-01-31 /pmc/articles/PMC6994479/ /pubmed/32005947 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-58435-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Gailey, G.
Sychenko, O.
Tyurneva, O.
Yakovlev, Y.
Vertyankin, V.
van der Wolf, P.
Drozdov, K.
Zhmaev, I.
Effects of sea ice on growth rates of an endangered population of gray whales
title Effects of sea ice on growth rates of an endangered population of gray whales
title_full Effects of sea ice on growth rates of an endangered population of gray whales
title_fullStr Effects of sea ice on growth rates of an endangered population of gray whales
title_full_unstemmed Effects of sea ice on growth rates of an endangered population of gray whales
title_short Effects of sea ice on growth rates of an endangered population of gray whales
title_sort effects of sea ice on growth rates of an endangered population of gray whales
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6994479/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32005947
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-58435-3
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