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Post-whaling shift in mating tactics in male humpback whales
Recent studies have shown behavioural plasticity in mating strategies can increase a population’s ability to cope with anthropogenic impacts. The eastern Australian humpback whale population was whaled almost to extinction in the 1960s (~200 whales) and has recovered to pre-whaling numbers (>20,0...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9935900/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36797323 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-04509-7 |
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author | Dunlop, Rebecca Frere, Celine |
author_facet | Dunlop, Rebecca Frere, Celine |
author_sort | Dunlop, Rebecca |
collection | PubMed |
description | Recent studies have shown behavioural plasticity in mating strategies can increase a population’s ability to cope with anthropogenic impacts. The eastern Australian humpback whale population was whaled almost to extinction in the 1960s (~200 whales) and has recovered to pre-whaling numbers (>20,000 whales). Using an 18-year dataset, where the population increased from approximately 3,700 to 27,000 whales, we found that as male density increased over time, the use of mating tactics shifted towards more males engaging in non-singing physical competition over singing. Singing was the more successful tactic in earlier post-whaling years whereas non-singing behaviour was the more successful tactic in later years. Together, our study uncovers how changes in both local, and population-level male density resulted in a shift in the frequency, and fitness pay-off, of alternative mating tactics in a wild animal. This individual-level plasticity in male humpback whale mating tactics likely contributed to minimising their risk of extinction following a dramatic change in their social landscape due to whaling. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9935900 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-99359002023-02-18 Post-whaling shift in mating tactics in male humpback whales Dunlop, Rebecca Frere, Celine Commun Biol Article Recent studies have shown behavioural plasticity in mating strategies can increase a population’s ability to cope with anthropogenic impacts. The eastern Australian humpback whale population was whaled almost to extinction in the 1960s (~200 whales) and has recovered to pre-whaling numbers (>20,000 whales). Using an 18-year dataset, where the population increased from approximately 3,700 to 27,000 whales, we found that as male density increased over time, the use of mating tactics shifted towards more males engaging in non-singing physical competition over singing. Singing was the more successful tactic in earlier post-whaling years whereas non-singing behaviour was the more successful tactic in later years. Together, our study uncovers how changes in both local, and population-level male density resulted in a shift in the frequency, and fitness pay-off, of alternative mating tactics in a wild animal. This individual-level plasticity in male humpback whale mating tactics likely contributed to minimising their risk of extinction following a dramatic change in their social landscape due to whaling. Nature Publishing Group UK 2023-02-16 /pmc/articles/PMC9935900/ /pubmed/36797323 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-04509-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/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/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) |
spellingShingle | Article Dunlop, Rebecca Frere, Celine Post-whaling shift in mating tactics in male humpback whales |
title | Post-whaling shift in mating tactics in male humpback whales |
title_full | Post-whaling shift in mating tactics in male humpback whales |
title_fullStr | Post-whaling shift in mating tactics in male humpback whales |
title_full_unstemmed | Post-whaling shift in mating tactics in male humpback whales |
title_short | Post-whaling shift in mating tactics in male humpback whales |
title_sort | post-whaling shift in mating tactics in male humpback whales |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9935900/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36797323 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-04509-7 |
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