Cargando…

Beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) acoustic foraging behavior and applications for long term monitoring

Cook Inlet, Alaska, is home to an endangered and declining population of 279 belugas (Delphinapterus leucas). Recovery efforts highlight a paucity of basic ecological knowledge, impeding the correct assessment of threats and the development of recovery actions. In particular, information on diet and...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Castellote, Manuel, Mooney, Aran, Andrews, Russel, Deruiter, Stacy, Lee, Wu-Jung, Ferguson, Megan, Wade, Paul
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8631677/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34847192
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260485
_version_ 1784607611269677056
author Castellote, Manuel
Mooney, Aran
Andrews, Russel
Deruiter, Stacy
Lee, Wu-Jung
Ferguson, Megan
Wade, Paul
author_facet Castellote, Manuel
Mooney, Aran
Andrews, Russel
Deruiter, Stacy
Lee, Wu-Jung
Ferguson, Megan
Wade, Paul
author_sort Castellote, Manuel
collection PubMed
description Cook Inlet, Alaska, is home to an endangered and declining population of 279 belugas (Delphinapterus leucas). Recovery efforts highlight a paucity of basic ecological knowledge, impeding the correct assessment of threats and the development of recovery actions. In particular, information on diet and foraging habitat is very limited for this population. Passive acoustic monitoring has proven to be an efficient approach to monitor beluga distribution and seasonal occurrence. Identifying acoustic foraging behavior could help address the current gap in information on diet and foraging habitat. To address this conservation challenge, eight belugas from a comparative, healthy population in Bristol Bay, Alaska, were instrumented with a multi-sensor tag (DTAG), a satellite tag, and a stomach temperature transmitter in August 2014 and May 2016. DTAG deployments provided 129.6 hours of data including foraging and social behavioral states. A total of 68 echolocation click trains ending in terminal buzzes were identified during successful prey chasing and capture, as well as during social interactions. Of these, 37 click trains were successfully processed to measure inter-click intervals (ICI) and ICI trend in their buzzing section. Terminal buzzes with short ICI (minimum ICI <8.98 ms) and consistently decreasing ICI trend (ICI increment range <1.49 ms) were exclusively associated with feeding behavior. This dual metric was applied to acoustic data from one acoustic mooring within the Cook Inlet beluga critical habitat as an example of the application of detecting feeding in long-term passive acoustic monitoring data. This approach allowed description of the relationship between beluga presence, feeding occurrence, and the timing of spawning runs by different species of anadromous fish. Results reflected a clear preference for the Susitna River delta during eulachon (Thaleichthys pacificus), Chinook (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), pink (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha), and coho (Oncorhynchus kisutch) salmon spawning run periods, with increased feeding occurrence at the peak of the Chinook and pink salmon runs.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8631677
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher Public Library of Science
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-86316772021-12-01 Beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) acoustic foraging behavior and applications for long term monitoring Castellote, Manuel Mooney, Aran Andrews, Russel Deruiter, Stacy Lee, Wu-Jung Ferguson, Megan Wade, Paul PLoS One Research Article Cook Inlet, Alaska, is home to an endangered and declining population of 279 belugas (Delphinapterus leucas). Recovery efforts highlight a paucity of basic ecological knowledge, impeding the correct assessment of threats and the development of recovery actions. In particular, information on diet and foraging habitat is very limited for this population. Passive acoustic monitoring has proven to be an efficient approach to monitor beluga distribution and seasonal occurrence. Identifying acoustic foraging behavior could help address the current gap in information on diet and foraging habitat. To address this conservation challenge, eight belugas from a comparative, healthy population in Bristol Bay, Alaska, were instrumented with a multi-sensor tag (DTAG), a satellite tag, and a stomach temperature transmitter in August 2014 and May 2016. DTAG deployments provided 129.6 hours of data including foraging and social behavioral states. A total of 68 echolocation click trains ending in terminal buzzes were identified during successful prey chasing and capture, as well as during social interactions. Of these, 37 click trains were successfully processed to measure inter-click intervals (ICI) and ICI trend in their buzzing section. Terminal buzzes with short ICI (minimum ICI <8.98 ms) and consistently decreasing ICI trend (ICI increment range <1.49 ms) were exclusively associated with feeding behavior. This dual metric was applied to acoustic data from one acoustic mooring within the Cook Inlet beluga critical habitat as an example of the application of detecting feeding in long-term passive acoustic monitoring data. This approach allowed description of the relationship between beluga presence, feeding occurrence, and the timing of spawning runs by different species of anadromous fish. Results reflected a clear preference for the Susitna River delta during eulachon (Thaleichthys pacificus), Chinook (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), pink (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha), and coho (Oncorhynchus kisutch) salmon spawning run periods, with increased feeding occurrence at the peak of the Chinook and pink salmon runs. Public Library of Science 2021-11-30 /pmc/articles/PMC8631677/ /pubmed/34847192 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260485 Text en https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) public domain dedication.
spellingShingle Research Article
Castellote, Manuel
Mooney, Aran
Andrews, Russel
Deruiter, Stacy
Lee, Wu-Jung
Ferguson, Megan
Wade, Paul
Beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) acoustic foraging behavior and applications for long term monitoring
title Beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) acoustic foraging behavior and applications for long term monitoring
title_full Beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) acoustic foraging behavior and applications for long term monitoring
title_fullStr Beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) acoustic foraging behavior and applications for long term monitoring
title_full_unstemmed Beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) acoustic foraging behavior and applications for long term monitoring
title_short Beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) acoustic foraging behavior and applications for long term monitoring
title_sort beluga whale (delphinapterus leucas) acoustic foraging behavior and applications for long term monitoring
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8631677/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34847192
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260485
work_keys_str_mv AT castellotemanuel belugawhaledelphinapterusleucasacousticforagingbehaviorandapplicationsforlongtermmonitoring
AT mooneyaran belugawhaledelphinapterusleucasacousticforagingbehaviorandapplicationsforlongtermmonitoring
AT andrewsrussel belugawhaledelphinapterusleucasacousticforagingbehaviorandapplicationsforlongtermmonitoring
AT deruiterstacy belugawhaledelphinapterusleucasacousticforagingbehaviorandapplicationsforlongtermmonitoring
AT leewujung belugawhaledelphinapterusleucasacousticforagingbehaviorandapplicationsforlongtermmonitoring
AT fergusonmegan belugawhaledelphinapterusleucasacousticforagingbehaviorandapplicationsforlongtermmonitoring
AT wadepaul belugawhaledelphinapterusleucasacousticforagingbehaviorandapplicationsforlongtermmonitoring