Midterm 1 Flashcards
I did a lot of the data on whales come from
Whaling logs
What are some methods for estimating cetacean population
Mark recapture, surveys, genetics
What is mark recapture
Using artificial marks that are made, using natural marks like the tale of the whale or scratches on the fan.
Our surveys conducted
Buy air, ship, land
What are the population growth rates of cetaceans like / general trend
Low maximum population growth rates
The number of Wright Wells how very proud the years with a huge population decline happening presently… The question is how many were there and how are they figuring this out
Historical methods - add catches and births, pre-whaling pop size
Genetic methods
- estimate mtdna + # of females needed to produce it
Total pop size proportional to # breeding females
What’s the problem with the historical method and genetic method of estimating cetacean population size
There are huge discrepancies and differences between the population size from these two methods
mysticetes social structure
Safe from predators, pray our car easily, strong seasonality and their environment for migrations, mom calf bond, if you other bonds because of interactions for feeding and breeding
Most Mysticetes do not cooperatively feed together, they are groupings are usually temporary during the summer feeding season however there is one exception to this… Which one cooperatively feeds together and how
Humpback form a bubble net
Return the winter breeding they usually congregate in what type of waters and why
Calm, relatively warm water. They do this because there’s a higher chance of calf survival
Who has more power in the meeting decisions
Females
Explain sperm competition during the winter breeding season
Right wheels display this, they make enough sperm to blast out the previous emails sperm
Female is surrounded by a number of males with her belly up at the circus so that the males can’t access her genitals, males are underneath and have a mobile penis that can search for the female and deposit it sperm
What are songs used for
Mating rituals
How do the songs of the males for example in humpbacks dispersed geographically across the oceans
They move eastward across oceans
What are some characteristics of a meeting ritual songs
All male sing the same songs to attract females, song changes from year to year, songs change from location
How do odontocetes differ from mysticetes in feeding
Go after Faster moving fish, prey difficult to catch
Who is more social mysticetes or odontocetes why
Odontocetes
Need to protect young because born smaller and prone to predators
River an insurer dolphins and B12 a very similar to hump back feeding… How do they feed
Disturb the bottom and create mud nets with bubbles
Food in small quantities leads to what kind of odontocetes structure
Solitary or small groups
River or inshore dolphins - mud nets
Food in large quantities + odontocetes
Massive amounts of mammals aggregate because predictable food stock
Harbour porpoises bay of fundy
Food in large unpredictable quantities +odontocetes
Large groups
Tropical pelagic dolphins
Difficult prey to catch + odontocetes
Structured groups i.e orcas
Coordinated orca wave to eat seal
The sociality of larger more socially complex groups is related to what
Care of young and predators
How do you sperm whales adapt their diving when they have a calf in their group
They stagger their dive so that the young calf is never left alone at the surface
Gift of general patterns of Odontocetes sociality
Inshore = small groups (little predation, small amount of food)
Offshore - larger groups
Small animals - unstructured (safety in #)
Larger animals - strucutred (orcas)
what are some features of larger odontocetes in a permanent structure group
Long lactation Long lifetime Large brain, complex Altruism (helping another at a cost to yourself) Complex vocal repitoire Culture
Explain the different alliances seen in male cetaceans
1st alliance - groups are close
2nd alliance - first order comes together to help access female
Super alliance - bunch of animals together, who otherwise arent usually together to defend territory
What is the general difference between male and female cetaceans and their group structure
Females group structure adapted to food and habitat
Male social behaviour adapted to females
What is the most powerful sound that exist naturally on the planet
Sperm whale acoustics
Used in male competition for females
What are orcas
Largest oceanic dolphin, distinct black and white, Apex predator, wide diversity
What are the basic anatomy components of an orca
White eyepatch and a saddle patch
What is the closest relative to an orca
Australian snout fin dolphin
Where are orcas found
West coast of Canada and the US, Norway, Iceland (herring eating) Eastern Russia and Japan East coast of South America Antarctica
Explain the life history of orcas
Sexually dimorphic Males larger than females Females mature faster than males Station is about 15 to 18 months Nurse young for at least a year, sometimes two years
What are some differences between male and female orcas
Males - Long dorsal fin, long pectoral fin, more elongated white patch
Females - mammary slits, shorter more curved dorsal fins, young males look similar to females with a curved dorsal fin when young
Can mail orcas have mammary slits
Yes sometimes
What is an Ecotype
Orcas of a geographic region that differ from the rest
Ecotypes mix
Nope
In the Pacific Northwest there are three Ecotypes of orcas - what does this mean
Culturally distinct between the different egotypes, they use the same habitat but they don’t interact/mix with each other
What is an orca Clan
Distinct call, distinct dialect within that clan
The Southern offshore order clan that they found around Southern California in Southeast Alaska and we see that travels up to 200 miles a day, in large groups and has teeth that are completely worn down… What was the hypothesis for why they have teeth that are so run down
They eat sharks and other bottom fish which wear down their teeth overtime
The northern residence of North East Vancouver Island mainly eat salmon… why do the mothers feed the suns to make the males big and bulky
To make them male attractive to other females for meeting
The southern resident orcas that live middle Vancouver island between Vancouver and Victoria have been subject to intents whale watching and there’s only 73 individuals left leaving them very vulnerable. Their diet is salmon and they need over 600,000 salmon to feed. Why do they blame northern residence for the depletion and the southern resident population
Blame northern residence for eating most of the salmon, as well as other pink salmon and pinnipeds for eating the available fish
What are the main physical differences between resident, transient, and offshore orcas
Resident - rounded dorsal fin, sharp ridge on dorsal fin side, open saddle patch, predictable diving pattern
Transient - Sharp dorsal fin, closed saddle patch, stay around the shoreline and dive below
Offshore- more rounded top to dorsal fin, closed saddle patch
What type of Antarctic orca is found in open waters, it’s diet is mink whales, and it is the largest of the Antarctic Kiko tapes
Antarctic type a
What Antarctic orca tape has a two-tone gray appearance, eats seals and penguins, migrate up to South America to shed their skin of diatoms and have a large eyepatch
Type B
What type of workout is fish eating, found in the ice cracks, using spy hopping technique for navigation, is a two-tone colour with an angled eyepatch
Ross C
What Antarctic set of orca is found in the higher latitudes of the southern ocean, has a bulbous forehead, has a small iPad, feed mostly on fish, is rarely seen, this is very rare to see, was first noticed in 1955
Antarctic type D
The Atlantic has type one and type two orcas. Where are the type one orcas found? What do they usually eat on?
Norway and Iceland
Feed on haring migrations
How do you tape on orcas to feed on haring use their tail to feed
They gather a big ball of herring and then hit it with its tail to stun the herring and then feed on them
What type of orca are the marine mammal eaters like the ones that are seen off of Newfoundland and eight mink wells and other marine animals
Type 2
How does the melting arctic ice affect the normal population with their relationship to killer whales
Melting see ice has allowed tape to killer whales to hunt narwhals which is an added pressure on their species on top of climate change
Type of orcas are found in New Zealand
Shark and ray eaters
Mainly eat fish, some of them surf waves alongside surfers, shallow environments, use waves to hunt sharks and rays, do a unique form of feeding via stranding. On beaches
Where are transient orcas found
Only in the North Pacific
What are some of the most poorly understood orca groups
Caribbean as well as tropical Pacific
Some of the biggest concerns for the southern resident wells in Canada for conservation
Noise and food
What are two sources of mortality four N. Atlantic right well
Entanglement and ship strike
What are to risk mitigation project for Atlantic right whale
Reduce fishing effort and times and places that overlap with whales and alternative technology that is safe for Wales
Reduce vessel speed
For risk mitigation for right whales what do we need to know about them
Where and when to find them
I do right whales feed
Swim forward with my mouth open
Slot in front of mouth where the prey enters
Water is shunted out back of the mouth near the eye
Allows whales to swim and feed without creating a bow wave
Actively suck and pray through filtration
North Atlantic right whale have fine baleen plates that are down to the 300 µm. This only allows them to eat small things and they have very restricted feeding to large zooplankton down to the grain size of rice. What is one of the downsides of this feeding strategy
Creates a lot of drag because of the plates
Why do North Atlantic right whales target only zooplankton
Trophic efficiency and zooplankton factors that overlap with whale movements
What are some of the unique life history features of zooplankton that make them so desirable for right whale feed
In the spring the eggs mature, and by the end of far they are close to adult size with a lot of fat. They go into diapause where they shut down metabolically *NSYNC and hibernate. They re-emerge as adults and restart the cycle. Wright Wells need to billion cup pods a day. They can find dense patches of these zooplankton in diapause to meet demands
Dense patches of zooplankton in diapause
How do these dance calanus patches of copepods form
Diapause causes them to sink deep in the ocean and dense patches
The mechanisms that Wright Wells used to find these copepod dense patches differs based on their special scale. Explain these differences between large medium and find scale spatial scales
Large - working memory
Medium - combo of memory, feature tasting (sensing ocean salinity, acousitcs
Small - tactile - hairs on chin, sense vibrations in water column
Right well can’t gather their own pray they rely on
Environmental patterns in order to feed
Does the Slocum glider do
Swims up and down in the water column it’s a used in remote sensory as a tool to monitor new habitats with acoustics
What are two projects that are being done to help study north Atlantic right whale
Slocum - remote sensing
GoSL - visual surveys
How do you hump back whales feed
Filter feeders that eat crow, hearing, sand lance
Bubble feeding
I’m back wheels are sexually dimorphic with females being larger than males. Why are the females larger?
Attract more males for reproduction because they are larger, healthy females means healthy calves
The humpback whales are sometimes called the winged whales because why
Large pectoral fins that can reach 4 to6 m
Why do humpback whales have such large pectoral wings
Manoeuvrability
Mating dance
Sharp movements
How do you come back use their pectoral fins in their bubble net feeding strategy
Use pectoral fins to help push food into the mouth
What are some behaviours of humpback whales
Ariel displays, tail slapping, fin slapping
What are some of the thoughts as to why humpback whales have aerial displays, tail slapping, fin slapping?
Cleaning for parasite removal, meeting behavior, sexual display, aggression, communication, Forge technique, play behaviour
When males migrate in spring to higher latitude feeding grounds how did the vocalizations change compared to when they are at breeding grounds
They are non-song like vocalizations that are not as pattern/intricate as their mating songs
What is the structure of a whale song
Pattern makes a phrase, phrases are repeated, phrases make a theme, this theme becomes the song,
Song session is the repeating of the song sometimes for hours on end
Why do I’m back whales migrate
Thermoregulation because the warmer water helps regulate more efficiently with less work
Comer waters for young
Predation except this is less likely because they are orcas down south
Culture, the mothers do it so the young take after the elders tradition
How do the humpback songs transfer across the ocean… In what direction does this transfer happen
From West Coast to East Coast across the ocean
What is a good analogy to think of how well songs change every couple of years
The changing trend of jeans
What are some of the theories about why humpback whales sing
Meeting, competition, oral history
Researchers found that there are humpback whales singing in the winter which is not where breeding is… why do some of them not migrate down to the south in the winter
So may not migrate because they’re trying to get bigger and it’s expensive to migrate down south
Could be old females who aren’t calving
Why would males be singing in the winter in Nova Scotia
They could be practising the song
Found that some wells don’t start with the full song, start with fragments of the song even though they know the whole song… Maybe they are just practising certain bits of the song
They found that more mail saying at night then during the day which is seeing consistently around the world what did this mean about their meeting strategy
They mate during the night time
Sperm whales are suborder odontocetes and family..
Physeteridae
What is the most phylogenetically distinct whale i.e. it is the most different from whales and dolphins
Sperm whales
Sperm whale is an animal of extremes because it is…
Largest tooth whale
Sexually dimorphic (males much bigger than females)
Of the largest intestine on earth
Asymmetric
How are sperm whales asymmetric
They have a single blow hole on the left tip of the head that blows forward and to the left
What is a unique feature of the nose of a sperm whale that is used in communication and the making of sound
Above the upper jaw there is an organ with oil that is used to refract and bounce sound to make clicking vocalizations
Makes a very directional and powerful sound
Why do sperm whales have unpredictable migrations
They depend on food… If food is good they stay, if food is bad they leave
What do sperm whales feed on
Midwater and Deepwater squid and Fish
What are some predators to sperm whales
Killer whales, large sharks possibly, humans
What are sperm whales spending 70% of their time doing? What about the other 25%?
75% spent foraging, 25% spent socializing
What are the sperm whale social structures like for females
A unit is usually made up of 10 females
If you see a group of 20 females it’s likely two units that can be together for a couple hours to a couple days but not as permanent as a unit
What are some of the features of the communal lives of female sperm whales
They move and travel together, they babysit each other‘s calves while the mothers dive, they suck all each other‘s cars, they defend themselves, females depend on the social structure for survival
Sperm whale codas are pattern series of clicks. Made mainly by females. Coda repertoires in social units found in the Galapagos showed three clans of codas… what were these three clans
Regular spaced clicks, plusone groups, short groups
What were some differences between the regular and the plus one clan of sperm whales near the Galapagos islands
Reg - near isalnds, wiggling pattern, liked colder water
- count poop
+1 clan - farther from isalnds, easier to follow, like warmer water, did well during el nino
Coda glands are not genetically discrete… There is no difference between their nuclear genes.They live in the same environment, and their differences are not about age nor six groups… What could this clans possibly be evidence of
Culture
These social clicking patterns. Are passed on through generations
What are some male sperm whale behaviours and patterns that we see
Males leave their mother and female relatives around age 16
As he ages he moves to a higher latitudes
Lots of males seen in northern climates not as many female seen in northern climates
Bachelor groups
Communal stranding of males on Sable Island
Males return to low latitudes to breed with females
What other animal are sperm whales usually compared to because of their extreme features
Elephants
Sperm whales most closely related to and how
Elephants
Specialized nose, huge brain size, life history similar, mobility, female social structure, communal care of young, segregation of males, long range vocal communication, roving strategy of males
Why are elephants and sperm whales so similar
Modified knows that is useful and increases feeding success
Can logically dominate
Intraspecific competition don’t have any real predators so they only compete with their own species
Slow life history processes when competing with on species, emphasis on building strong young
How does the long exploration voyages of the Polynesians provide a good example of gene culture coevolution
Polynesians went on these long voyages with out giving meals which causes the body to produce more sugar which is linked to diabetes
Modern Polynesians are more susceptible to type two diabetes linking to a specific gene variant
What physiological changes are correlated with culture
Larger brain size
Ecological dominance
What are three primary modes of cultural transmissions
Vertical
Oblique
Horizontal
What type of transmission is learning from adults who aren’t parents, and may not relfect genetic transmission (i.e grandparents to granchild,teacher to student)
Oblique
What kind of transmission is learning from parents, stable transmission similat to genes, things like language or religion
Vertical transmission
What is horizontal transmission
Learning from peers
Unstable
Transmission different from genes
Faster within group evolution
Like popcultre
What test was used to see the advanced cognitive abilities of dolphins
Mirror mark test
What features to whales and dolphins share
Long live, prolonged care of young
Big brains
Advanced cognitice abiliyt
Complex social structure
What are the transmission mechanisms of culture
Imitation
Teaching
Whats a feeding culture of orchas that is taught by teaching
Stranding on beach to catch seals
They practice on beaches without seals
What are some unique features of humpback whales song
Long, cicular repeated vocalization
Sung by makes on breeding grounds
Move west to east
Songs propogate across the ocean
Why are humpback whale songs considered horn transmission and an example of culture
Genetics can’t explain this
Only males sing to breed, they learn the song and it propogates through the ocean from west to east
All sing same song with minimal vara
Blue whale song is less complicated, but shows a steady drop in frequency over the last 5 yr period… what kind of transmission is this
Horizontal
Sperm whales, all males, feeding strategy on longlines of fisheries.. what type of transm
Horizontal
How was culture seen in captive orcas
Started spitting out fishto catch birds to play with
This behaviour spread throughout other individuals in the captive group for many genera
How did orcas work with whalers…
They would alert whalers when orcas had killed a humpback so whalers could go get the leftover blubber after orcas had fed
Orcas would help sheperd whales towards whalers
How might culutre it eract with conservation
Trawler dolphins - eat fish thrown overboard
Found that getting rid ofmthe dependency, even though fear of losing 1/w of population to this forage strategy, dolphins re-inter grated with old population habits
Whats a downside to culture (southern orcas…
Maladaptive conformism
Only eat slecific salmon type and wont conform to another type
Culture can segment a populations
- diff foragin clans of sperm whales
- example plus one anregular
What are the main takeways about cetacean culture
Important for griup identity
Behavioural diversity from genes and culture transmission
What are pilot wha,es named for
Long oectoral fins
Give the size and life history of pilot whales
Sexual dimorphic Males bigger than females Longer life;sand of females Males mature faster than females Gestation - 12-13mo Nurse for 2+ yrs Breeding and calving peaks happen year round,anytime
What is a unique fewture lf pilot whales
Breeding boom
Baby boom in late july then againt in the fall
Long pectoral fins
What are three distinct marking on pilot whales
Eye stripe
Saddly patch
Anchor patch
What are the two major differences between the subspecies ofmpilot whales
Long finned - elbow
Short-finned - cyclical
Why would male pilot whales babysit? Usually these males aren’t part of that group
Maybe two familiy groups are travdlling together
Male display to attract females - he is healthy enough to spend energy babysitting, impressive to females
Where are pilot whales fround
Off cape breton
300-400 deep
Come off laurentianchannel
Eat squid
Where does sound come from in pilot whales
Blowhole
What modified acousitc sequence types were found in oilot whale calls
Stable - same s-ound
Embel- buzz added to third call
Morphed - call goes all over the place
What is a pattern seen in pilot whales call that is unique
When they start makking a call type, stable, embelor morphed, they continue making that call
Is there actually a pilot of pilot whales
From dive interval, median dive times remain the same, so no real leader - if there was, you’d expectt he median dive time to decrease as you go down the group dive times
Maybe they make a coordinated, consensus decision
What 2 things to diving mammals adapt to for diving
High P
Limited o2
What is boyle’s law
V of air becomes less as p increase
What wnhances the greater 02 blood capacity of marine mammals
Blood volume
Haemoglobin concentration
Number of RBCs
Marine mammals hearts are adapted for diving? What are the benefits?
Larger, flattened (contracts and expands under high pressure more easily if flat), oxygen store in aorta
