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Multiple pygmy blue whale acoustic populations in the Indian Ocean: whale song identifies a possible new population

Blue whales were brought to the edge of extinction by commercial whaling in the twentieth century and their recovery rate in the Southern Hemisphere has been slow; they remain endangered. Blue whales, although the largest animals on Earth, are difficult to study in the Southern Hemisphere, thus thei...

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Autores principales: Leroy, Emmanuelle C., Royer, Jean-Yves, Alling, Abigail, Maslen, Ben, Rogers, Tracey L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8062560/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33888792
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-88062-5
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author Leroy, Emmanuelle C.
Royer, Jean-Yves
Alling, Abigail
Maslen, Ben
Rogers, Tracey L.
author_facet Leroy, Emmanuelle C.
Royer, Jean-Yves
Alling, Abigail
Maslen, Ben
Rogers, Tracey L.
author_sort Leroy, Emmanuelle C.
collection PubMed
description Blue whales were brought to the edge of extinction by commercial whaling in the twentieth century and their recovery rate in the Southern Hemisphere has been slow; they remain endangered. Blue whales, although the largest animals on Earth, are difficult to study in the Southern Hemisphere, thus their population structure, distribution and migration remain poorly known. Fortunately, blue whales produce powerful and stereotyped songs, which prove an effective clue for monitoring their different ‘acoustic populations.’ The DGD-Chagos song has been previously reported in the central Indian Ocean. A comparison of this song with the pygmy blue and Omura’s whale songs shows that the Chagos song are likely produced by a distinct previously unknown pygmy blue whale population. These songs are a large part of the underwater soundscape in the tropical Indian Ocean and have been so for nearly two decades. Seasonal differences in song detections among our six recording sites suggest that the Chagos whales migrate from the eastern to western central Indian Ocean, around the Chagos Archipelago, then further east, up to the north of Western Australia, and possibly further north, as far as Sri Lanka. The Indian Ocean holds a greater diversity of blue whale populations than thought previously.
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spelling pubmed-80625602021-04-23 Multiple pygmy blue whale acoustic populations in the Indian Ocean: whale song identifies a possible new population Leroy, Emmanuelle C. Royer, Jean-Yves Alling, Abigail Maslen, Ben Rogers, Tracey L. Sci Rep Article Blue whales were brought to the edge of extinction by commercial whaling in the twentieth century and their recovery rate in the Southern Hemisphere has been slow; they remain endangered. Blue whales, although the largest animals on Earth, are difficult to study in the Southern Hemisphere, thus their population structure, distribution and migration remain poorly known. Fortunately, blue whales produce powerful and stereotyped songs, which prove an effective clue for monitoring their different ‘acoustic populations.’ The DGD-Chagos song has been previously reported in the central Indian Ocean. A comparison of this song with the pygmy blue and Omura’s whale songs shows that the Chagos song are likely produced by a distinct previously unknown pygmy blue whale population. These songs are a large part of the underwater soundscape in the tropical Indian Ocean and have been so for nearly two decades. Seasonal differences in song detections among our six recording sites suggest that the Chagos whales migrate from the eastern to western central Indian Ocean, around the Chagos Archipelago, then further east, up to the north of Western Australia, and possibly further north, as far as Sri Lanka. The Indian Ocean holds a greater diversity of blue whale populations than thought previously. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-04-22 /pmc/articles/PMC8062560/ /pubmed/33888792 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-88062-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis 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 licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence 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 licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Leroy, Emmanuelle C.
Royer, Jean-Yves
Alling, Abigail
Maslen, Ben
Rogers, Tracey L.
Multiple pygmy blue whale acoustic populations in the Indian Ocean: whale song identifies a possible new population
title Multiple pygmy blue whale acoustic populations in the Indian Ocean: whale song identifies a possible new population
title_full Multiple pygmy blue whale acoustic populations in the Indian Ocean: whale song identifies a possible new population
title_fullStr Multiple pygmy blue whale acoustic populations in the Indian Ocean: whale song identifies a possible new population
title_full_unstemmed Multiple pygmy blue whale acoustic populations in the Indian Ocean: whale song identifies a possible new population
title_short Multiple pygmy blue whale acoustic populations in the Indian Ocean: whale song identifies a possible new population
title_sort multiple pygmy blue whale acoustic populations in the indian ocean: whale song identifies a possible new population
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8062560/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33888792
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-88062-5
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